The Nadar Chronicles Part II: Earth
by Korean Pearl
Summary: A crash landing in North Korea, country of slave camps. A girl who is half Elemaki: an inferior race from the Andalite Home World. A race to survive. A people that transforms the universe. All brought together in The Nadar Chronicles Part II: Earth.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own the Animorphs. And read Nadar Chronicles Part I: Andalite Home World before you read this, and read Elemaki Chronicles before you read that. They aren't that long, so it is not a big deal and this Chronicle will make a lot more sense.  
  
The Nadar Chronicles Part II: Earth  
  
Chapter One:  
  
My name is...  
  
{AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!} I screamed as my escape pod hurtled down to Earth.  
  
Yes, Earth. Where the humans lived.  
  
I was streaking across space like a meteorite when I hit Earth's atmosphere. My space ship instantly caught on fire, since I was going way too fast for any ship in atmosphere.  
  
I was going to die. Again.  
  
For the third time actually. Or fourth? I couldn't remember. Let's see, I almost died when Osgaron, my brother, and I escaped from the flames that killed my mother, I almost died when I cut off Xelaman the Andalite's tail, and I almost died when –  
  
Who cares!? Think about how to survive this crash that is impossible to survive!  
  
I was about to respond to myself with a sharp retort, when the still flaming escape pod began slowing down.  
  
Impossible.  
  
My space ship landed softly on the land of a new planet. I darted outside of a hole created by the melting metal and ran as far away as I could, knowing that the explosion created by the pod's electronic components mixed with the heat would be great. I heard a BOOM! behind me and darted my stalk eyes backwards to see the prison that I had just escaped from go up in flames that would get rid of all evidence that an alien space ship had landed.  
  
The Andalites like to keep their presence unknown.  
  
I continued to run as I heard a voice, not the Ellimist that had started this mess, but someone else.  
  
YOU OWE ME.  
  
Whatever. This was too confusing. I was getting tired of all these galactic beings messing with my life as if I were actually important.  
  
Galactic beings...  
  
I had already cursed the Ellimist, and the human that had given me the morphing power, and I knew that something had acknowledged those curses.  
  
But I had not yet cursed the Andalites.  
  
I stopped running, and stood perfectly still, remembering all the hatred of my years, remembering everything that the Andalites had done to me, everything that they had taken away, but I didn't get upset. I knew, with definite certainty, that this cold anger that was burning slowly against the Andalites would be better used in my vengeance against them than a hot anger that used me.  
  
{I curse you, Andalites. I curse your name. May you be forever cursed with the hatred of the galaxies, as you have hated me. Curse you for abandoning me to my death. May you remain cursed until...} a thought came to me, a striking thought that swept through me and filled me. {May you remain cursed until every single one of you bows your eyestalks to me in shame and in fear.}  
  
There. That would never happen, so the Andalites were cursed forever.  
  
Satisfied, I waited for the acknowledgement that came, strangely along with amusement.  
  
I ignored it for now. As long as the Andalites were cursed...  
  
Why did I have this power to curse?  
  
And if I had the power to curse, did I have the power to bless...  
  
Maybe, I would have found an answer if a little human hadn't screamed just then.  
  
I turned my eyestalks to see a human, the size of what the Ellimist had called a five year old. It was trembling, and I could tell easily that it was scared.  
  
"Oma..." it whimphered.  
  
My translating chip waited for a few seconds, then translated that into Mamai. The alien was calling for its mother!  
  
I stepped forward, and the human tripped backwards in its haste to get away from me. I spoke to it, hoping to calm it down.  
  
{Don't be afraid. I won't hurt you.}  
  
It looked at me in wonder. "Nah muh-lee han-tu yeh-geh-heh?" it said.  
  
My translating chip didn't have enough vocabulary to translate that, so I asked the human to repeat what it said. Obediently it did, and this time I understood that it had said, "You speak into my head?"  
  
{Yes, I do,} I responded gently.  
  
The human stared at me and asked, "Nooh-gooh yah?" Who are you?  
  
{My name is...} My voice trailed off. How many people had I told that my name is Mayanamar-Semitur-Aventa only to have the Andalites, take me away from them?  
  
"Moh?" What?  
  
{Give me a name,} I asked spontaneously. The alien looked at me quizzically and then asked me again who I was.  
  
I guess five year old humans don't have very high intelligence.  
  
Oh, might as well give her my full name. It's not like the Andalites are going to come here and take me away again.  
  
{Mayanamar-Semitur-Aventa.}  
  
The alien stared. "Mayahn-" it started then gave up. "Mah-yah." It looked up at me to see if I approved. I bowed my eyestalks then realized that humans didn't have eyestalks so that gesture probably didn't mean anything. Instead I replied, {It's good.}  
  
The human repeated me in its own language. "Chowah." Then, "Nah ee-lum uun Eun-hee yah." My name is Eun-hee. It then pronounced very carefully, "Nah nuun dah-sus sal yuh-jah yah." I am a five year old girl.  
  
Ok, so I had some information about her. I started to tell her my age when she walked up to me and grabbed my hand. I jerked away, unused to anyone touching me. She stared at me again, and took my hand.  
  
"Doh-uum peeh row heh," she whispered. I need your help.  
  
What? I knew her for about five minutes and she was already asking me for help? Were all humans like this? Well, first I needed to morph her so that I wouldn't look like an alien on a planet that aliens obviously didn't visit. I contemplated explaining the process of morphing to Eun-hee, but decided against it. Instead I said, {I will turn into you. Ok? Don't scream and don't be afraid.}  
  
Eun-hee moved her head up and down. Huh? What was that supposed to mean. I said again, {Ok?}  
  
She looked at me crossly. "Nah yeh-geh-hessuh, allah suh." I told you, it's ok.  
  
I guessed that that gesture of nodding your head up and down meant yes to humans, kind of like how bobbing our eyestalks meant yes.  
  
I gripped Eun-hee's hand and concentrated, noting that she went into a trance. About ten seconds later, she woke up and watched me as my back legs shriveled up into my body and my front legs turned yellowish. My arms turned the same color, and shortened in length. A hole stretched across my face at the same time that a nose grew outward. Finally, my eyestalks shriveled into my head, while black fur sprouted from the top of my head that stopped at my shoulders.  
  
I looked at Eun-hee, who looked like she was going to puke. "Oht-peeh row heh," she informed me. You need clothes.  
  
What were clothes?  
  
Eun-hee grabbed me by my now human hand as I fell over. Ouch. Two legs, I forgot.  
  
She laughed, a sound that startled me. Reaching over, she picked me up with two hands. "Nah dah-ruh wah." Follow me.  
  
Eun-hee led me to a building that could have been a space ship except it was too... shabby. Not to mention it was made out of wood and was a rectangular shape and obviously couldn't fly.  
  
Ok, so maybe it couldn't have been a space ship. But that was the closest thing that I could compare it too.  
  
I heard voices and instinctively I lowered myself into the bush that surrounded this building. Eun-hee crouched next to me, fear radiating from her.  
  
My translating chip picked up the following. "And we will burn this house at sunset as a reminder to others that insurgents will and do pay for their crimes. Anyone who goes against the great North Korean country and against our great god, Kim Jong Il will pay either with his life or with service to our country in a reeducation camp. May the rebellious be warned!"  
  
I heard the sound of a chemical engine starting as the voices receded. Eun- hee pulled me out of the brush as soon as the sound disappeared, and startled, I wobbled after her.  
  
The smell of blood hit me as soon as I walked into what Eun-hee described as "her house."  
  
Eun-hee stared at the bodies on the floor, bodies that looked like hers, except bigger. All of them had yellowish skin and black hair, and some of them actually looked a lot like her, as if they...  
  
As if they were related to her.  
  
Eun-hee sank to the floor on her knees and buried her face in her hands. I saw liquid water coming out of her eyes as she breathed in short gasps.  
  
"Oma... Appa... Oba... Ahn-neeh..." Mamai... Papai... Older brother... Older sister...  
  
I stood helplessly to the side, not knowing how to comfort her.  
  
She lost her family, I reminded myself. Like you.  
  
"Don't worry," I told her impulsively, in her strange Korean tongue. "I will be your family."  
  
She looked up, and then swiftly got up and threw her arms around my neck, sobbing. I jumped a little, but quickly realized that this was the way that humans probably got comfort.  
  
"Ahn-nah juh," she wept. Hug me.  
  
I noticed how she was holding her arms around me and carefully placed my arms around her.  
  
Wow. That feels... good.  
  
I held her tighter, trying to ease her of the grief of losing her family, as she told me in sobs of how her mother had pushed her out the door and told her not to come back.  
  
Like my Mamai had pushed Osgaron and me in front of us to save us from the fire.  
  
What did I say to this child? That her mother died for her, so be happy?  
  
No, that wouldn't do.  
  
Eun-hee got over it faster than I expected. Wiping the liquid from her eyes off of her face with the back of her hand, she led me further into the house. Taking some pieces of cloth from a pile, she put them on me. Then she looked at me as if to say, "Now what?"  
  
I looked back at her, this alien child that had adopted me without a thought, without even knowing who I was.  
  
I knew that if I was to stay with anybody on this planet that I knew nothing about, it would have to be with someone that accepted me no matter what.  
  
Like Eun-hee did.  
  
A moan from the room with the dead bodies.  
  
Eun-hee and I stared at each other, with two eyes, and then raced into the other room. "Oma!" Eun-hee shrieked as she threw herself on an older human.  
  
I followed behind, not wanting to intrude.  
  
The mother of Eun-hee stared at me with almost dead eyes. "I dreamed of you," she murmured in Korean. "An alien, no? To take care of my daughter."  
  
I wasn't sure what to do, so I nodded. How did she know that I was an alien? I had morphed. Her dream must have told her that I was an alien.  
  
Dream? She dreamed... of me? How- I mean, what?  
  
"Take her, please," Eun-hee's mother begged me. "Before the soldiers return."  
  
More soldiers. They seemed to be everywhere. And they seemed to be exactly the same, everywhere.  
  
The woman continued, her hands running down Eun-hee's head and back. "Tell her that we died because we would not deny our God. That the North Koreans persecute Christians wherever we are and that we died rather than deny Him."  
  
I nodded again.  
  
She smiled. "I will pray for both of you, and I will be happy knowing that my daughter is in your hands. Neither of you will die until you know the Lord." Then turning to her daughter, she told her, "Sah rang heh." I love you.  
  
Her hands slipped away from Eun-hee's face as she crossed the Sea of Stars to be with her God, her God that had sent her dreams about me...  
  
Who was this God?  
  
Eun-hee turned to me, her face wet with the liquid that had spilled from her eyes. "Moh heh?" she whisphered. What do we do?  
  
I stared at her, at her mother, at my brother that was not here, at my mother that was with my brother, at my entire family that had lived and died for me, and Eun-hee's family that had done the same for her.  
  
"We live," I told her firmly. "Come."  
  
She reached forward and pressed her closed mouth to her mother's face, then got up and performed the same ritual to each of the bodies in the room. Then she got up, reached for my hand, and said, "I'm ready."  
  
We walked out the door together, holding hands, me trying not to stumble and Eun-hee trying not to cry.  
  
We walked for a few paces, while I tried to register everything that had just happened to me. I had landed on another planet when I should have crash landed but something had stopped me, I had been dreamed about by a human that shouldn't even know that I existed, and I was –  
  
I was a human. A five year old human.  
  
Just like the Ellimist had promised.  
  
And my name... it wasn't Mayanamar-Semitur-Aventa any more.  
  
My name is...  
  
Mah-yah.  
  
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Whew! A lot of typing. Ok, this chronicle is going to average about seven pages per chapter. I hope that's long enough. And hurray! I am among humans! I can use human gestures, I can cry, I can nod my head, and I can write about things that humans do instead of converting them into Andalitism! Hurray! Hurray! And I can use quotation marks! Ok, enough celebration. From now on I'll just type whatever they say in English, even though they will be speaking Korean, because it is tiresome to translate each time (my Korean isn't that good), and you can just assume they are speaking in Korean.  
  
Rachel9466 – Hmm, I never thought about that with the second Andalite child going into the military. I guess so, except now with the morphing, no one really is expendable. A lot changed on the Andalite Home World – twenty-six years worth of change!  
  
Anonymous-cat – Yeah, I think I'm doing daily updates now since I'm on spring break. I don't want to promise in case I can't, but I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to.  
  
Custardpringle – Oh, Cynd(i), I did that just for you. No really, I'm not that obsessive. I think I'm at the point that I obsess just to scare my friends. Although he is adorable... (j/k!)  
  
Yes, I'm getting less reviews because I'm updating faster now. Appreciate it! I'm writing for the joy of writing (and for my core group of reviewers) not for the adulation of the crowd. This should be good practice for when I started to write originals.  
  
Review! You know you want to... Just one little review. I'm giving you another chance in another Chronicle! Aren't I nice.  
  
Review. 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:  
  
I measured my life out in hours.  
  
And it had been only thirty-two hours since I landed.  
  
Let's see, first ten hours sleeping, if we could stay asleep for that long. Unfortunately, the pain in our stomachs would be a really effective awakening. And then we crawl along in the dirt looking for anything edible.  
  
It was amazing how different grass tasted when it was going through your mouth and not through your hooves.  
  
Not to mention dirt. Anything tasted good when you were starving.  
  
For about the millionth time, I wondered why Eun-hee kept shying away from eating grass and dirt. I mean, dirt I could understand, but grass, is what you eat, even if it is a little awkward to get down on your hands and knees to eat it.  
  
At least for the first twenty-four hours. Then she was on her knees like me.  
  
I had never been this hungry before in my life. I found out from Eun-hee that humans generally eat three meals a day, although in her household they only ate two. When I asked her why, she said something about how the visiting soldiers only left them enough food for two meals a day.  
  
I was seriously thinking about cursing these soldiers that kept messing with other people's lives.  
  
Then again, Solethi is a soldier. And you wouldn't want to curse – whoops. I guess I already did curse him when I cursed the Andalites.  
  
I was too hungry to care.  
  
Maybe when I get some food, I'll be able to think.  
  
When is that going to happen?  
  
After I'm dead.  
  
That makes no sense.  
  
"Mah-yah?" Eun-hee asked tentatively.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Why are you staring at the sky?"  
  
I shook my head to clear my thoughts, only to be reminded of my hunger by a sharp pain in my stomach.  
  
"I was thinking. I do that a lot, when there is nothing else to do. It's quite useful, actually. Some people are actually under the impression that it does something. You know, when they get together in huge circles and think. And think. And think. And think. And die."  
  
Eun-hee giggled. "I don't understand, but you sound funny."  
  
"Great," I answered. "So now I have been demoted from half-breed filth to Elemaki slave to amuser of little human children."  
  
Eun-hee giggled again.  
  
I looked at her, exasperated. "I'm starving."  
  
She nodded empathetically. "Me too," she pronounced, as she made no suggestion on how to alleviate this problem.  
  
C'mon, she's a five year old human. What do you think she's going to do? You're the one who is supposed to take care of her, remember?  
  
A noise.  
  
Instantly we darted into the underbrush off the road. Traveling down the road we met more people that were likely to give us food, but we also met more people that would be just as likely to beat us up, for whatever reason their sick minds could produce.  
  
Eun-hee and I continued quietly off the side of the road, not looking back. Unsurprisingly, I was used to it – used to having only two eyes to look with.  
  
Three years of no eyestalks got me well-trained for life as a human.  
  
Trained – training? Was it possible that I lost my eyestalks for a purpose?  
  
"Look!" Eun-hee whispered in my ear, pointing. My eyes followed her outstretched arm, which was pointing to an abandoned building. Her eyes shining, she said, "We can sleep there tonight!"  
  
Startled, I smiled automatically at her, and then walked towards it. She was so... so... simple. But it made her sweet, the way she was so delighted at little things.  
  
Having a place to sleep is not simple. And if weren't lost in your mind all the time you would probably notice other "simple" things that you would die without.  
  
So I'll guess I'll find out eventually which "simple" things I missed when I finally die of missing them.  
  
We crept quietly up to the shack in case someone was there. Motioning Eun- hee aside, I peered around the corner through a crack between the barn doors.  
  
Nothing.  
  
I pulled the doors open, only to be hit by a flying mess of feathers that went SQUAWK! in my face. Instinctively I grabbed it, more as a reflex of defense than anything else.  
  
Eun-hee jumped out from behind the wall just as I fell down, still unsteady on my legs. With a desperate look in her eyes, she grabbed the hen from me, and wrung its neck sharply, killing it at once.  
  
I lay on the ground, in shock.  
  
Holding the hen aloft, she laughed with delight. "Food! We can eat!"  
  
"You killed it," I whispered.  
  
She looked at me curiously. "Of course I killed it. You can't eat something that is living," she told me as if this was the most obvious thing in the world.  
  
Obviously she was mentally damaged. "Well, you generally don't eat anything that has lived," I explained as gently as I could.  
  
Eun-hee looked at me in consternation. "You mean you eat grass and dirt where you came from all the time?"  
  
"Well, not dirt, but grass yes."  
  
"Like a cow?"  
  
I wasn't sure what a cow was, but apparently it ate grass.  
  
"Um -"  
  
She interrupted me, still holding the dead chicken in one hand. "How do you eat though? You didn't have a mouth, did you?"  
  
"I eat through my hooves," I answered. Like normal beings.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Never mind."  
  
Eun-hee shrugged, too hungry to really care. "I'll cook it tonight, if you can start a fire."  
  
I gaped. "You mean humans really eat dead animals?"  
  
"Of course we do. God gave them to us, didn't He?"  
  
I really didn't want to talk about this God that I didn't understand to the child. Instead, I said, "How do you start fire?"  
  
I ended up morphing to a creature that Eun-hee insisted was a dragon. Whatever. All I cared was that it spit fire when I needed it too. Eun-hee sliced open the chicken with amazing dexterity, and stuck "the meat" as she called it over some sticks, roasting the thing.  
  
It tasted amazingly good, for being so barbaric.  
  
We slept in the barn that night.  
  
The next morning I woke up first, feeling extremely satisfied after starving for so long.  
  
Except for the small fact that I could now continue on starving.  
  
I looked over at Eun-hee and saw how she was curled up in a little ball, the sunlight showing the dust motes above her black hair. I reached over and touched her hair, expecting it to be hot after being in the sun.  
  
It was.  
  
I pulled away and sighed. This was not going well. Maybe Eun-hee was content to live in this shack for the rest of her life if we were provided with food, but I did not want to stay here and do nothing.  
  
Speaking of which, what have you decided to do with your life?  
  
I sighed, and then reached over to shake Eun-hee awake. "Wake up."  
  
She shifted in her sleep, and her arms slowly stretched out above her head. Her eyes opened and she smiled.  
  
I couldn't resist. "What are you smiling about?"  
  
She shrugged. She was such sweet, simple child...  
  
Why I couldn't I be more like her? Why did I feel like I had to do something with my life? Why couldn't I just live?  
  
Eun-hee got up slowly, and yawned. She stared at the wall with blank eyes like the sleepy do, and then asked, "What's that?"  
  
I followed her gaze to the corner of the room, where there was a nest of hay in the corner with white roundish objects in it.  
  
Eggs. Except I had never seen them in a weirder color.  
  
"They're eggs," I told Eun-hee, who nodded, and said, "We can eat them."  
  
I blinked a few times, processing this information. Ok, eggs. Humans not only eat dead animals heated over fire but eggs.  
  
"Do they taste good?"  
  
Eun-hee laughed at my question. "Of course. They are very expensive though, so I have never had one."  
  
Wait a second. They tasted good, but she knew this because it was expensive? Like, costly? What did the cost have to do with how it tasted?  
  
I needed someone that could explain this messed up backwards world to me.  
  
Eun-hee and I got up and walked over to the nest and I watched as Eun-hee carefully picked two of the five eggs there. She handed one to me, and I held it in two hands, marveling at the smoothness of this object. But how did one eat it?  
  
I looked at Eun-hee who looked as puzzled as me. Oh yeah, she hadn't eaten an egg either. She spoke carefully. "I think that you break it open and then eat what is in the inside."  
  
Well, I knew from listening in to Andalite children's classes during the three years that I was by myself that eggs contained the embryo of the bird, and if one cracked it open, the embryo would die. Unless the egg hadn't been fertilized, and then the egg would just stay and egg and not hatch.  
  
I never once contemplated that these unfertilized eggs could be eaten.  
  
I held the egg over my mouth, and dug my fingers into the shell, cracking it apart. The liquid inside of it fell straight into my mouth, and I almost choked, the taste was so strong. However, food was food and in this day and age when it was almost never available you ate when you had it and didn't save because someone would take it from you.  
  
I had learned about humans in less than forty hours.  
  
So instead I swallowed.  
  
I turned to Eun-hee, nodded, and said, "Good." She took that as consent to crack open her egg the same way, although she really did choke. Using amazing self-discipline, however, (or maybe just desperation) she closed her eyes and swallowed.  
  
When she opened her eyes, she made a face. "Who would pay money for that?"  
  
Money. Another concept that I didn't get, something that Eun-hee kept referring to. Constantly.  
  
I expected her to turn around and leave, but instead she sat down.  
  
"We can stay here until the food runs out."  
  
"How long will that be?" I asked her, also carefully folding my legs underneath me and assuming the posture of sitting.  
  
Eun-hee looked over at the eggs. Three left.  
  
Then she looked at me. Of course.  
  
"Well," I started, "We can share one tonight at dinner, and then tomorrow we will eat one each so that we will have strength to travel."  
  
Eun-hee nodded, apparently pleased with my decision, and then curled up to go to sleep again. I wanted to follow her example, but I couldn't keep from thinking that we shouldn't have eaten those eggs, we should have saved them.  
  
You know what happened last time you "saved bread".  
  
Oh yeah. Those twelve year olds took it from us, even while we were cramming it down our throats.  
  
Better to eat now when you have food than to wake up and find out that someone took it.  
  
Well, we plan to stay here anyway. I'll just find a good place to hide them.  
  
I decided to dig a hole in the floor of the barn, using a morph that I had acquired on the planet sRo. It had a powerful front claws, and it took me about five second to dig the hole that I wanted. I then woke Eun-hee up, who was startled to see a huge beast nudge her gently, but once she realized that it was me, she willingly carried the eggs over, which I then covered with dirt.  
  
There. Now they were safe.  
  
Why I was spending so much time to hide three eggs I had no idea.  
  
I demorphed as Eun-hee went to sleep again. Lucky girl. She used sleep as a way to conserve energy, and to avoid the pangs of hunger much more effectively than I could.  
  
I heard a soft grunt, and then the sound of a body falling followed.  
  
I froze.  
  
Carefully, I crept outside, crawling on my hands and knees to see what the noise had been.  
  
It was a man.  
  
A drunk man.  
  
A drunk man with a bottle in his hand and a packet of what was obviously food under one arm.  
  
An idiot drunk man with a bottle in his hand and a packet of what was obviously food under one arm.  
  
I walked up carefully, knowing that the drunk often seemed dead to the world but could be quite violent when aroused. I mean, the Andalites had their share of those who got drunk off the nutrients of certain roots, but those roots had long been banished.  
  
I peered down at the bottle that he held in his hand and noted that it still had some liquid in it.  
  
Well, Eun-hee said that such liquid was evil, and I had enough proof from beatings on the Andalite Home World that it was. So I carefully removed his bottle from him and dashed it on the ground next to him.  
  
Too loudly.  
  
The man grunted, woke up and saw me. With swiftness and strength that scared me, he grabbed my arm and dragged me closer.  
  
"My bottle," he said, his voice slurred, his breath stinking with alcohol.  
  
If I had been hungrier, if I hadn't had sleep then I might have started calling for help. But I knew that if I called, Eun-hee would just get hurt.  
  
I felt detached almost, knowing that this man had the power to hurt me but at the same time knowing that I wasn't afraid. Why was this-  
  
No. Don't start reflecting –  
  
I think this was the one time that reflecting actually saved my life because it hit me, I wasn't in his power, he was in mine even though he didn't know it.  
  
I could morph.  
  
Better to keep it a secret though. I didn't know if the Yeerks had invaded this planet within the twenty-six years that I leaped, but if they did...  
  
I still doubted they would want to infest this specimen.  
  
Backed with the knowledge that I could morph at any time I chose, I reached down and picked up the largest shard of glass with my free hand.  
  
How did one kill a human?  
  
In my mind I saw Eun-hee wringing the neck of the chicken, and I reached for his neck with the glass. Even if I couldn't wring his neck, I could cut it off.  
  
Or at least cut it.  
  
I watched in fascination as my hands, the human hands that I had morphed and therefore were mine although I still viewed them as ones I borrowed from Eun-hee, I watched as they cut the man's throat lying in the road. I watched as they took his bag of food, as they collected the shards and wrapped them with some rags that they tore from his shirt.  
  
I watched as they killed the man and stole his belongings, and I watched them do this with no regret.  
  
I didn't tell Eun-hee.  
  
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Ok, sorry that it came a day late!  
  
Hey – thanks!  
  
D.H. L'Orange – Ok, first power to bless and curse. Well, you know that in the Andalite Home World whenever she cursed someone then "a sweeping sense that they would be cursed" came over her? That's what I mean by the power to curse. So she was just wondering whether she had the power to bless, as well, since they usually come hand in hand. And also, about Eun-hee and North Korea. I decided for a number of reasons to land her in North Korea, one of which is that I'm half-Korean (see my bio). That makes me a little more comfortable with the setting, since I usually don't like to write about things that I haven't experienced directly. And as for the year, I was just kind of putting it in "present" because the Animorphs didn't really have a set year, but was also just "present". I'm glad you liked this chapter!  
  
Prue Halliwell – Thanks for your review! I'm glad you like my story.  
  
Anonymous-cat – Yes, I'm a Christian. However, I put God in my story more because I am somewhat familiar with North Korea (see response to DH L'Orange's review) since I'm half-Korean. I knew that Christians were persecuted there, and since I needed Eun-hee to be the only one to survive so she could go with Mah-yah, I used that in my story. I could have made Eun-hee's parents part of a political organization, but like I said in DH L'Orange's review, I don't like to write about things that I either haven't experienced or that I haven't researched about. I really am not aware of any political organizations countering Kim Jong Il's, so I didn't want to write about something I didn't know. It makes it sound fake. Also, God comes up later mostly with Eun-hee who I am placing as a Christian. Yeah, and I also just like to include Korea in my fics and it is a communist country, which basically means that a lot happens there that the world wouldn't necessarily know about. *hint hint*  
  
Tabatha – Yay! Thanks for taking the time to read and review! Everyone seems to like that it is placed in Korea. I explained to Anonymous-cat about that too – since, North Korea is a communist country, it would be one of the places in the world where it's ok for soldiers get to go around killing people.  
  
Ali-Adi – Yeah, the Koreans. I love my mother's people. Thanks for the review!  
  
Jumba Jookiba – It's called Nadar Chronicles, um, I can't really explain without telling you the whole story, so you just gotta wait. Sorry! And also, you want to be in it? Hmm, like how? Do you want me to use your name Jumba Jookiba, or a different one, or what? I'm not making any promises, and if I do you might have to wait a while, but I just need some clarification. Thanks!  
  
Reviews are welcome! 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three:  
  
"Eun-hee?" I asked, carefully, cautiously.  
  
"Mmm?"  
  
"What's the difference between a human and an animal?"  
  
She looked up at me. It had only been a few weeks and I could already see how gaunt she was, how her skin stretched tight to her cheekbones, how just walking took up most of her energy.  
  
Not that I was in any better condition.  
  
"Humans are humans. Animals are animals," she told me, as if stating the obvious.  
  
Of course. But what was the difference? The difference between them, the –  
  
Just tell her.  
  
"Eun-hee?" I asked again.  
  
She nodded.  
  
"Why is it ok to kill an animal and not a human?"  
  
Eun-hee sat there for a while, puzzling this out. Finally, she answered. "Because God made us different than animals."  
  
She was always invoking God.  
  
"How did He make us different?"  
  
Eun-hee looked at me quizzically. "Didn't anyone teach you this stuff?" But before I could explain the lack of education that I had received in the Andalite Home World, she jumped ahead. "Because we have a spirit and animals don't. That doesn't mean we should kill animals, it just means that it's not... not... murder, like killing a human."  
  
Well, under my theory there was no difference between humans and animals, except that we were smarter.  
  
So smarter people get to kill dumber ones?  
  
Within a species, it's wrong, I hurriedly assured myself.  
  
But then why did animals kill each other without anyone saying it was wrong? In fact, wasn't it survival of the fittest for the smarter animals to kill dumber ones?  
  
So what really was the difference between humans and animals? Or species for that matter. I mean, humans were like animals to the Andalites. Primitive beasts.  
  
So could Andalites/Elemaki kill humans as humans killed animals?  
  
Why are you trying to justify your murdering the human?  
  
Panicking, I began to protest that insistent voice that demanded that I face what I did. No! No, what I did was right. It was either his survival, or Eun-hee's and mine.  
  
Liar, the voice came harshly. You could have morphed and knocked him out and taken the food. No, you just didn't regard the human as your equal, you didn't regard him to have the same claim on life that you had and so you thought murdering him would be fine.  
  
You're just like the Andalites that killed your brother because they thought they had more claim on life than he had.  
  
"No!" I cried aloud. Eun-hee ran up to me and held me.  
  
"What's wrong?"  
  
I breathed, panicky quick breaths, afraid of what I had done, afraid of how quickly I had done it and afraid of how I was trying to justify it.  
  
"Eun-hee," I breathed. "I killed the man that I got the food from."  
  
"What? What are you talking about?"  
  
"Remember the time we spent in the shack a few weeks ago? The man that I told you I had found dead?"  
  
She nodded. Oh, why couldn't she just get it? Did I have to explain everything?  
  
Yes.  
  
"I didn't find him dead. I killed him."  
  
Eun-hee's eyes opened, her face alight with horrific realization.  
  
But she didn't let go of me. Instead, she held me tighter.  
  
"I forgive you for lying to me," she told me softly.  
  
I wept, bitter human tears that released emotion like nothing else could. "But, Eun-hee, who will forgive me for killing the man?"  
  
"Only God can," she told me.  
  
Then I would never be forgiven. For I could not, would not believe in a God that had given me a life like this one.  
  
Given you Eun-hee? You couldn't believe in a God that gave you someone like her?  
  
As always, whenever I didn't want to answer such questions, I put them away, and turned my mind to other things.  
  
Eun-hee however, didn't want to.  
  
"God loves you," she said, while still holding me tightly.  
  
I almost laughed, a bitter laugh full of anguish and grief. Instead I whispered, "What is love?"  
  
Eun-hee held me for a few more seconds while I closed me eyes, basking in her warmth, and kindness and –  
  
Love.  
  
Eun-hee also began to whisper, answering my question. "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."  
  
We were silent for a moment. Then, "I love you," Eun-hee told me, now drawing back so she could look in my eyes. "That is what love is and so I love you."  
  
That was the first time that someone had told me that they loved me without dying right after, and so I could not help but fear that someone would kill Eun-hee right after she said those words.  
  
Of course I knew what love was.  
  
I had just forgotten.  
  
Eun-hee loved me.  
  
I think that I went through some kind of shock, a similar kind like when I first morphed into the body of my brother, my brother who had loved me too.  
  
Eun-hee, who loved me, who wasn't related to me, who loved me anyway, even though we had only been together for a few weeks, brushed her hand through my hair. Then smiling, she took hold of my hand and we continued walking.  
  
Later that day we stopped to rest. Earlier that week I had acquired a cow, and I morphed it now so that Eun-hee could milk the cow. We had found another beer bottle on our journeys, and after emptying it and washing it out, it worked well as a milk holder. As for food, we could still beg from travelers, and since we were young, they often gave it to us.  
  
We were still constantly hungry, but we weren't dead.  
  
Yet.  
  
After Eun-hee was done with her meal, she filled the bottle again for me so that when I demophed I could drink.  
  
"Mah-yah?" she asked me as soon as I was done demorphing. She still didn't quite understand that I could hear her as an animal.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Why are you angry?"  
  
The question took me by surprise. "I'm not angry," I protested immediately. "Why do you think I am?"  
  
"Because," she looked at me with her head tilted. "You seem like it."  
  
Oh, well, thanks, that tells me so much, I thought as I laughed out loud.  
  
"Why are you laughing at me?" she asked, with a little pout.  
  
"I'm not laughing at you," I said, still laughing. "I'm laughing with you."  
  
She considered this for a moment. "But I'm not laughing."  
  
This last statement made me fall over, gasping for breath. Eun-hee started giggling as well, although she obviously didn't know what I was laughing about. I looked at her, and burst into laughter again at her smiling face, at her body that told me that she was happy because I was happy.  
  
"Now," I told her, after we stopped laughing. "We need a plan. We need to decide where to go."  
  
Eun-hee's eyes lit up. "I know!" she cried.  
  
Startled, I looked at her. I had expected her to nod and look at me as she always did whenever we needed to decided something. "Go ahead," I told her.  
  
"America!"  
  
"What?"  
  
"America. It means beautiful country."  
  
"Where is it?"  
  
Eun-hee pointed a hand vaguely to one side. "Over the Great Sea, somewhere."  
  
I smiled as I shook my head. "Well, that doesn't really help us."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Because," I started plaintively, "I know that it is somewhere, but I don't know where 'somewhere' is -"  
  
"So you children want to get to America, the land of freedom?" a voice called out.  
  
We both turned around in fright.  
  
There was a young man standing there, watching us intently with bright, bright eyes.  
  
Too bright. Too intently.  
  
"What do you want?" I asked him, making my voice sound as bold as possible.  
  
"I want to give you advice."  
  
Ok, advice was... alright, as long as it was good advice and we could choose whether or not to follow it. But then again, there was the problem of what this guy wanted. In my experience in life so far, very few people did something for nothing.  
  
Except Solethi. And his wife. And the Andalites that helped me get to the Island. And Kyranie, who warned me on the moon. And Eun-hee. And the travelers that gave us food.  
  
So, maybe I was wrong. But still, it was good to be cautious.  
  
"Ok."  
  
"You can't go straight to America. You have to cross the Pacific Ocean to do that, and yes, it is a 'Great Sea,' as your little friend so charmingly put it."  
  
How long had this guy been watching us? Why hadn't I been paying attention? If he saw me morph...  
  
The guy leaned in closer. "I can see that you still don't trust me. So let me just tell you this. I hate Kim Jong Il and all he stands for."  
  
"Why?" I asked.  
  
The man's face grew ugly as he spat into the dirt next to him.  
  
"Don't spit," Eun-hee admonished the man. "It's not nice."  
  
Instead of laughing, the young man told her, "If you had been through what I had been through, you would be spitting too."  
  
Resisting the urge to trade "who suffered more in life" stories with the man, I asked again for an explanation.  
  
"I went to one of the prison camps that are sponsored by Kim's regime. Or you can call them reeducation camps. Either one. Or concentration camps. Or slave labor camps."  
  
These camps, spoken about with such bitterness meant nothing to me until he uttered the last one. Slave labor camps.  
  
Slaves. Earth had slaves.  
  
Come, Mah-yah, wherever sentients live together there will be some sort of slavery.  
  
The man continued. "I got let out, eventually. After ten years. They really just want our labor, not our lives, although it seems like it sometimes. Anyway, for your advice. Stay away from soldiers, although that kind of is a given. And in order to get to America, you have to leave North Korea first. Go north, to China, another country. There you can make your way east, across the Pacific Ocean to America." He stopped for moment. "Do you even understand what I'm saying? I mean, how old are you?"  
  
Well mister, I'm an eight year old Andalite/Elemaki. And this girl here is a five year old human. So I understand, and she will, because I will explain to it to her later, in terms that she will understand.  
  
Instead of saying this to him, I told him, "Yes, I understand."  
  
He got this look of "I see" in his eyes. "Well, you certainly don't sound like a child. Just remember what I said, and maybe you'll make it out alive. Probably not."  
  
Thank you for your vote of confidence. But thank you much more for your information.  
  
"Where is north?"  
  
The man pointed at a mountain peak far in the distance. "Head for that. After you cross it, it will only be a few miles before you reach the Chinese border. Then you have to cross a river called the Yalu river. Once you get there, go east, and stowaway on a boat that will take you east, to California. If you are caught, don't worry, they won't throw you overboard. They won't return, either, once they are far enough out to sea, so don't get caught right away."  
  
I grimly held onto all his words, so that I could ask someone about them later, even though I didn't understand all of them now. All I needed to know for now was to head for that mountain peak.  
  
"Good. That's all I can tell you."  
  
"Why don't you come with us?" The words slipped out before I could think about what I was saying.  
  
The man looked at me sadly, an emotion that I had not expected. "I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to."  
  
Silently I finished his sentences for him. I don't want to live. I don't want to live this life. I don't want to live this life I live.  
  
I watched as he turned away.  
  
"What was he talking about?" Eun-hee asked me as soon as he was out of sight.  
  
I didn't answer right away. I just continued to stare in the direction that the young man had gone, where he had gone to end his life.  
  
Or maybe begin it.  
  
"C'mon Eun-hee. I'll explain it while we walk."  
  
We both got up, cleaned up the area around us, and continued walking.  
  
North.  
  
To China.  
  
Then East.  
  
To America.  
  
The land of freedom.  
  
******************************Review Responses**************************  
  
Finally! My beta just finished reading this and editing. *cough* it took forever *cough*. I love you dear sister! Even though your breath smells. Ok, never mind me and my weird mood – responses!  
  
DH L'Orange – I'm glad you liked the dirt and grass part. And as for Eun- hee being sad, I'm afraid you'll have to blame my lack of experience in that. I've never lost a close family member, so I really really didn't know how to write one. I also haven't read any books about specific descriptions of grief, so I really couldn't be accurate So I kind of used time to heal that. Yeah, and about those raw eggs. Well, I always thought that people got sick because of salmonella poisoning (is that how you spell it?) and since this is kind of a less industrial area of North Korea (i.e., cows, and few people on the road, and hens that lay eggs that you can eat raw without food poisoning). And nope, the dead guy is just a dead guy. I needed it to lead up to this chapter, too.  
  
Tabatha – Yeah, the switch of foods would be really big. I just arranged it so that she would be so hungry that she would eat anything that she could get her hands on.  
  
Anonymous-cat – Really? Wow. I didn't know that you were Christian either. Well, I wouldn't know, but never mind. Anyway, about Mah-yah's beliefs, well, you'll have to wait for a while yet, *hint* till the 3rd Chronicle *hint* before her beliefs get resolved. And this chapter shows a little bit of that too. And, oh yeah, I had to have her kill the guy so that the issue of forgiveness and love could come up, so I could use it later – everything I write now I almost always intend to use later.  
  
Jumba-jookiba – Well, you'll find out soon why it's called Nadar. Or relatively soon anyway. And yes, I do have a spot in mind, but you'll have to wait!  
  
Ali-Adi – Yeah, Andalites and their taste buds. I'm just exited to be on Earth so I can use human gestures. Which you probably picked up in my author's note after the 1st chapter.  
  
Just click that little button. It's calling to you! I'm resorting to old methods, so you can just type "Uh" as a review, and I really won't mind! 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four:  
  
The mountain never seemed to get closer.  
  
And we only got weaker.  
  
We were near a town when I collapsed by the side of the road. I lay there for a few minutes, not wanting to get up, ever, when Eun-hee fell to the ground next to me.  
  
We stayed there, not moving, barely breathing, our stomachs aching, our joints swollen from malnutrition.  
  
Then I heard a racketing sound in the distance.  
  
"What is that?" I asked Eun-hee, my mouth barely moving.  
  
She closed her eyes and held still for a moment.  
  
"A train."  
  
A train. I lifted my head and looked at it speeding across the ground.  
  
It was going north.  
  
With every last ounce of energy I lifted myself up and then turned to help Eun-hee. Staggering, we made our way to the train.  
  
Maybe I should morph a horse or cow or something and carry Eun-hee there.  
  
No. Others would see a five year old riding a horse and they would be suspicious.  
  
Except she was six now, wasn't she?  
  
Had we really been walking for a year?  
  
No, I corrected myself, it had only been two and a half months since I landed on Earth.  
  
The train was made up of box like cars, and wasn't that far away. Maybe if we caught up...  
  
By the time we got there it was slowing down at a rather remote station, and so Eun-hee and I climbed on board, grateful that we wouldn't have to walk.  
  
The train let us off a depot where we were pushed along in a crowd of other freeloaders.  
  
"Hold my hand," I ordered Eun-hee. I didn't want to lose her in the crowd.  
  
"Where are your parents, children?" a concerned voice called out from behind me.  
  
I turned around quickly, without letting go of Eun-hee's hand.  
  
A security guard.  
  
I had to think up something quickly. Can't tell him we don't have parents, or they'll take us somewhere.  
  
"We don't have parents."  
  
Thanks Eun-hee.  
  
"They're dead."  
  
I turned to look at her, surprised at the vehemence in her tone. Her eyes stared at the security guard blankly, as if inviting him to do his worst.  
  
The man looked down, obviously fazed by her quiet yet piercing gaze. "I'll take you to a place where you can stay safe."  
  
He reached down and grabbed both of our hands. No escape.  
  
He took us to an orphanage he claimed. Left us in the hands of other adults that held us just as tightly.  
  
My first taste of slavery on Earth, and it had the exact same flavor as the slavery I had first done on the Andalite Home World.  
  
A factory.  
  
Making socks.  
  
For four months.  
  
We had to move pins, shift gears, bite threads, just mindless work that a computer could have done. I mean, at least on the Andalite Home World the slaves got to do things that machines couldn't.  
  
Like the elegant braiding of metal strips.  
  
It wasn't that bad. We weren't as hungry, and we got a place to sleep, crowded as it was. Even though we didn't get to sleep for very long.  
  
Until the soldiers came.  
  
The day had started like any other one, wake up early, trot into the factory half asleep, start the mindless work that I could mostly do by instinct and not have to concentrate on.  
  
"Mah-yah," Eun-hee's voice came, quiet yet insistent.  
  
"What?" I whispered back. We weren't allowed to talk while working, because the owners of the factory were afraid that if we weren't concentrating, we'd make mistakes in the fabric.  
  
So we talked quietly.  
  
"I want to leave."  
  
So do I, I responded silently. But it's difficult when we are locked up in a room at night and when we are surrounded by others during the day.  
  
"I want to go home," she told me, her voice trembling.  
  
Eun-hee, where is home?  
  
I sighed, and then started to respond to Eun-hee when the machines stopped working.  
  
Something was wrong. Very wrong.  
  
The machines never stopped. Not even at night, when the night shift took over.  
  
A soldier walked in and I could see the visible fear that went through everybody.  
  
The soldier could too, and I could tell that he loved causing this fear.  
  
"This factory is being closed down because of lack of production. You will be taken to the nearest camp where you will be given work to do so that you may remain productive. There are five trucks outside. Fill them."  
  
All of us, children and adults silently walked outside in order to get in the trucks.  
  
I followed with Eun-hee, hoping that once we were outside we could make a break for it. But no, there were soldiers there, with automatic machine guns watching us get into the trucks.  
  
Some people however, either didn't see them or didn't care.  
  
"No! I'm not going back to the camps!" a shrill woman's voice rang out. "I'm not going back! You can't make me!"  
  
The soldiers didn't reply, they simply pointed their guns at her. She stood defiantly, as if daring them to shoot. Then she shook her head as if in defeat and turned back to the trucks.  
  
Or seemed to.  
  
The next second she darted under one of the trucks and was running as fast as she could. Other people in our group took that opportunity and darted away.  
  
I would have except the soldiers didn't give chase; they merely lifted up their guns and almost lazily shot the fleeing people.  
  
Nobody escaped, and after that first round, nobody tried to.  
  
I darted into the crowd to get closer to Eun-hee.  
  
"Eun-hee," I whispered. "You need to stay close to me."  
  
She nodded. "I'm scared."  
  
"I know. But I think that we can make it through alive if we don't fight back."  
  
"Ok."  
  
We rode in silence in the trucks, holding each others hands.  
  
Camps. What was it about camps that –  
  
That man. Who talked to us about less than two months ago. He talked about slave labor camps.  
  
We sat there for hours. And hours. And hours.  
  
While I got more and more nervous.  
  
I could escape. I could morph.  
  
But Eun-hee...  
  
I never realized how strong a hold love has on you until then. Stronger than chains, stronger than ropes, stronger than anything that anyone could use to keep a person from escaping.  
  
Love was dangerous.  
  
I needed something to pass the time. Eun-hee was asleep on my shoulder, and I was becoming a nervous wreck worrying about what we were going to do.  
  
I could hear other people crying, other people whispering or murmuring to the people around them.  
  
I saw some people climb up to the tops of the speeding trucks and then jump off to their deaths, smashing into the ground.  
  
I shuddered.  
  
I was glad that Eun-hee was asleep.  
  
Was suicide an option? Well, not now it certainly wasn't- not with Eun-hee. But if I ever lost her...  
  
Don't be ridiculous, Mah-yah. You won't lose her.  
  
But it scared me. That these people feared these "camps" so much that they would choose to die now when there was no chance at life then to wait for a chance to live?  
  
To my shock, tears began rolling down my face.  
  
And I didn't even know why.  
  
Oh Eun-hee, why am I crying? Why do I feel so much grief and sorrow?  
  
I love you.  
  
How old is she? Only six, and now she's going to slavery.  
  
At least I had eight years of freedom. Or nine, now.  
  
How old am? My body is the same age as Eun-hee but my mind is so much older, much older than my nine years.  
  
I held her tightly as the trucks rolled into a camp surrounded by barbed wire, now under the setting sun, that would soon to turn to dusk and then to night where the moon would shine over all of us – the living and the dead.  
  
*****************************Author's Note*******************************  
  
Sorry, this chapter is really bad. And short. I'm going to update the next chapter, and although I can't promise that it will be up right away, it will be good. And it's late, so I'm just going to update now and respond to all the reviews next chapter. Sorry and thanks for all your support. 


	5. Chapter 5

Ok, here's a little geography lesson. China is a large country on the mainland of Asia. Korea is a peninsula slightly to the south of it. North Korea is communist country and South Korea is democratic. Korea was split in two during World War II and kept split in two during the Korean War. And as a note, all these things that I am listing below actually happened and still happen – I got them from reports of interviews with former guards and former prisoners that had escaped. And also, in Korea, last names are written first and first names are written last. For example, Lee Sang-hwa. Lee is the last name and Sang-hwa is the first name. And also, in Korea (and Asian countries) the relationship between older and younger siblings is not like it is in America. Instead, an older brother is like a brother-father. There are titles for this – an older brother or brother-father is called Oba. I will tell you the rest of the titles as we need them.  
  
Chapter Five:  
  
I spent the next two years wishing I was blind and deaf.  
  
I saw prisoners breaking through ice and wading waist-deep into a frozen stream in order to gather stones to build an electric power station.  
  
I saw scores of people die from frostbite, and even more lose their fingers and toes.  
  
I saw seventy-year-old American and British men working in road gangs – prisoners of war from the Korean War.  
  
I saw Japanese citizens that were abducted by the North Korean Army forced to work in slave camps.  
  
I saw dozens of babies stabbed by soldiers because their fathers were not North Korean.  
  
I saw a woman imprisoned because she had sang a South Korean pop song.  
  
I saw entire families arrested because a member of their family had tipped ink onto one of the pictures of the two Kims, or for not taking care of the photographs of the two that every household in the nation of 22 million must prominently display.  
  
I saw grandchildren arrested for their grandfather's supposed crimes – up to three generations of the family of each offender were detained to ensure "political purification."  
  
I saw a man arrested because his father had been executed after being accused of being a traitor to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, a lovely euphemism for a communist country that wasn't democratic or the people's or a republic.  
  
I saw pregnant women forced to abort their babies in case their fathers were not North Korean.  
  
I saw children collapse from hunger only to be beaten to death.  
  
I saw Christians killed and tortured because they wouldn't deny their Lord.  
  
I saw prisoners forced to mine coal for the glory of the country that had imprisoned and tortured them.  
  
I saw an officer order two guards to beat a prisoner because he was bored.  
  
I saw ethnic Koreans detained because they had visited Japan and thus had been influenced by their "evil capitalist system".  
  
I saw entire families tested on suffocating gas and dying in gas chambers.  
  
I saw prisoners used as guinea pigs for biochemical weapons – fifty "healthy" female prisoners were forced to eat poisoned cabbage that killed them in twenty minutes while they vomited blood and screamed.  
  
I saw prisoners tortured – routinely beaten and kicked, made to sit motionless for long periods and denied food.  
  
I saw inmates placed in small cells where it was impossible to lie down or stand up, others that were subjected to water torture, deprived of sleep, and compelled to perform stand-up and sit-down repetitive motions.  
  
I saw people killed by hanging or by a firing squad for attempting to escape.  
  
I saw a man forced to kneel for long periods with a steel bar placed between his knees and calves, being suspended by his handcuffed wrists and being submerged in waist-deep cold water for extended periods because his father had been accused of being an American collaborator.  
  
I saw people imprisoned for owning radios.  
  
I saw a woman sent to prison as a scapegoat for dwindling government food rations. She was seized unexpectedly at work one day, beaten and thrown into a frigid, 5-foot-by-5-foot underground cell for 14 months. She was regularly tortured, denied sleep, doused with water and made to kneel naked on ice.  
  
And the things I heard in the kwan-li-so or kyo-hwa-so, as these slave camps were called in Korean, were just as bad as the things I saw.  
  
I heard the weeping of people in their huts that they were crowded into thirty at a time.  
  
I heard the wails of babies as soldiers stabbed them in the soft part of their heads with forceps.  
  
I heard the screams of women as they were raped then forced to abort their babies.  
  
I heard the audible grief of women as they talked in whispers of how they were sold to Chinese men by slave traders and then sent back to the slave camps.  
  
I heard the guards mock the prisoners that they abused in every way they could.  
  
I heard the shots of guns every day as more and more prisoners died for crimes that weren't theirs or that didn't exist.  
  
I heard congratulations heaped on a guard that had tricked prisoners into a car, promising to help them escape and then shooting them – as a reward he got a free college education.  
  
I heard prisoners talk about escape to China, to the north, away from Pyong- yang the capital only sixty-two miles south of Yodok, this slave camp.  
  
I heard that 200,000 prisoners were held in slave camps in the mountains of North Korea, in order to hide us from human rights groups that would have helped us.  
  
I heard the cries of a man who was executed by being dragged behind the car until he was dead.  
  
And I felt his bloody and mangled corpse – all the prisoners were forced to touch his dead body still attached to the car.  
  
I saw and I heard and I felt and I smelled and I tasted the bitterness of life to a degree that I had never experienced before.  
  
And I saw Eun-hee beaten, I heard her cries, and I felt her wounds and I smelled her blood spilling and I tasted my tears as I cried them almost every day.  
  
But it took me two years to act.  
  
I hurried to the edges of the camps in order to throw out the pots of waste that I carried slung over my shoulders. Eun-hee was only a few feet behind me, but I didn't look behind.  
  
The "no-talking rule" was enforced much more harshly here than it had been in the factory.  
  
"Deny Him and we'll stop! Don't you see, it's quite simple," I heard a guard sneer, his voice breaking over the wind.  
  
I turned my head away from the sound. I couldn't do anything and it wouldn't help to look.  
  
I heard a cry and impulsively turned to look, then shut my eyes, wishing I hadn't.  
  
A young man, more like a boy, had a thick metal pipe on his neck. His hands were tied to the pipe, his palms facing out. His head was bowed as he tried to avoid the sticks and whips that landed on him from every direction. The ends of the pipe were attached to two poles that were placed vertically in the ground so that he couldn't run or hide.  
  
"Oh, God," he moaned. "Help me."  
  
"He can't help you," another soldier mocked. "The only god that exists is Kim Jong Il."  
  
But North Korea is an atheist country.  
  
It must be awkward being a god in an atheist country.  
  
I turned my head and continued to walk forward before a guard could yell at me and beat me until I moved.  
  
But Eun-hee didn't.  
  
She stood there, staring at the guards who were beating a sixteen year old boy for his beliefs.  
  
In my three years on Earth, I had learned that there are beliefs – political or religious – that humans will cling to and will die for. Beliefs that mean something to them, that make life worthwhile and give it meaning.  
  
And I envied them, because my life was worthless, my life was meaningless. The only reason I lived was for Eun-hee, yet she lived for Jesus.  
  
The guards noticed Eun-hee staring. "Get moving! Unless you want to join him?" One of them yelled, pointing at the boy with his whip.  
  
Eun-hee put down the pot she was holding and stood up straight. "Leave him alone," she told him, clearly and without fear.  
  
The guards laughed, and one of them walked forward and grabbed her arm, dragging her to where the boy was held.  
  
"You're a Christian too, aren't you?" He asked.  
  
Eun-hee looked straight into his eyes. "Yes."  
  
He slapped her with such force that she fell to the ground with a cry, and then the other men began beating her as they had beaten the boy.  
  
I watched in helpless fury.  
  
Eun-hee cried out again as a whip struck her thin frame, causing her to tremble violently.  
  
No.  
  
I wouldn't allow this.  
  
I threw down the pots I was carrying, causing the guards to look up at the noise. One of them said in surprise, "You're twins!"  
  
Astute observation. But not for much longer.  
  
I closed my eyes as one of them advanced on me, probably intending to drag me over to join Eun-hee.  
  
But he never touched me.  
  
My fingers thinned as they turned blue and as two extras came out. Fur started growing on my body as it also turned blue and two legs shot out of my upper body. My legs also turned into the thin Elemaki legs with hooves as stalk eyes popped out of my head that was now fully Elemaki.  
  
Lastly, my tail pushed out from behind, my tail that was long and beautiful and that had a sharp tail-blade at the end.  
  
I could hear the shouts of terror from the guards but I was only concentrating on one of them. He was standing in front of me, shaking in fear.  
  
My tail blade flashed as I swung it forward to bite into his neck.  
  
He fell, and I pulled out his gun from the holster by its side and calmly shot all six guards that were surrounding the boy and Eun-hee.  
  
I demorphed, then knelt by the soldier's dead body and acquired and morphed him.  
  
My first human morph.  
  
I saw Eun-hee turn away after I finished morphing because of my nakedness and so I knelt again and took the officer's clothing and put it on.  
  
I strode forward in my new body.  
  
"Eun-hee," I said softly, a deep voice coming out of my throat. I helped her up, and then turned to the boy who was looking at me in consternation.  
  
I took out a knife from the guard's uniform and the boy flinched, obviously thinking that I was going to stab him. I shook my head and then cut the boy loose from the pipe.  
  
He staggered forward and would have fallen if I hadn't caught him. I helped him to the ground softly, and then asked, "What is your name?"  
  
"Lee Sang-hwa," he told me.  
  
"Sang-hwa, I want you to take care of Eun-hee. Don't leave this area until I get back."  
  
He nodded, and then pulled Eun-hee into his lap.  
  
Good.  
  
"Don't do this, Mah-yah," Eun-hee begged. I turned away at the pleading in her voice.  
  
I didn't reply. What was there to say? I'm sorry, Eun-hee, but I'm going to kill all the guards in this prison camp no matter what you say.  
  
I turned away in silence.  
  
The guards were easy to kill. After all, I looked just like one of them. I simply had to walk up to a group, shoot them all, and then move on.  
  
No one suspected anything until almost all of them were dead, and by then there wasn't anything they could do.  
  
For the first time, the blood of guards ran through the slave camp instead of the blood of prisoners.  
  
I returned to Eun-hee and Sang-hwa almost two hours later. I demorphed rapidly, even though I wouldn't have been stuck inside the body of the guard. It would still be annoying to have the guard be my base body and not what I called my own.  
  
They were holding each other in the cold wind, and when I demorphed they got up and ran to me. Eun-hee dressed me quickly in the clothes that I had shed when morphing to Elemaki, and then asked me, "What do we do now?"  
  
"We leave. All the guards are dead."  
  
To my surprise I began weeping, weeping tears of anguish at the murders that I had just committed. Eun-hee held me, weeping with me as we let free our tears of grief at the world and at what the world did to us.  
  
Sang-hwa knelt and held both us in one embrace, and we turned to him, two eight year old girls seeking the strength that he would have to give.  
  
"We need to tell the others that they are free," Eun-hee whispered.  
  
Oh, Eun-hee. Still thinking of others, even to your own hurt.  
  
"I already told them," I whispered back. "While I was killing the guards."  
  
I trembled at my words, and Sang-hwa held me tighter as I clung to him.  
  
"Let's go," he told us.  
  
I looked up at him through my tear covered eyelashes. "What about your family?"  
  
He looked grim. "They are dead."  
  
"So are mine," Eun-hee responded.  
  
"And mine," I added.  
  
He smiled, a twisted smile of irony. "So let's make a new family. The three of us. I'll be your Oba, and you will be my little sisters."  
  
Oh, he was so kind, he didn't even ask me what I was although he had seen me mutate into a monster, he just accepted me as a sister, just accepted as who I was.  
  
I gave him a new handgun that I had picked up and asked, "Do you know how to use a gun?"  
  
He took the gun and put his finger on the trigger. "I know how to use it, but I won't."  
  
I nodded, as he picked up a holster to put the gun in and then held both of our hands tightly as we looked at the fleeing mass of people who were already breaking free of the prison that had held some of them for other half their life.  
  
I looked up at my Oba, and then at my sister Eun-hee, at my new family.  
  
And I hoped with all my heart that I wouldn't lose them like I had lost my first one.  
  
We joined the crowd fleeing the slave camp and resumed the journey that Eun- hee and I had started three years ago.  
  
North.  
  
Except this time we had hope of making it.  
  
****************************Review Responses****************************  
  
Ok, never mind, I got it up soon. And as for this chapter being good, let's just say that I tried to make it powerful. And also, I'm won't be able to get the next chapter up anytime soon, so you might have to wait for the weekend. Sorry!  
  
Tabatha – I'm glad you liked that part about the love. I didn't think about the hunting, mostly because Mah-yah would be the one doing it and she doesn't know very much about Earth's animals. But now with this new guy they should probably be able to some.  
  
DH L'Orange – You're right, Eun-hee does sound a little too old for five. *looks sheepish* I don't have much contact with five-year olds so I wasn't too accurate. I also like writing about people a little older, so now that Eun-hee is eight it should be a little better. Also, the slave camp and having her family murdered made her grow up a little faster than American kids her age. And about the Asian countryside, I don't know a lot about it, but I do know that there is very little electricity (if you look at a satellite map of North Korea at night there are virtually no lights except for in Pyong-yang, the capital). So I thought that no electricity generally meant rural farmland, although they do have stuff that Americans have (cars, etc.) only high up Party members have them. And about the train, it isn't like it is a passenger train with nice seats and stuff, it's like a transport train carrying coal to areas. You can just climb on top of the train. They don't use guards because you can't get the coal since it's inside the train car, but they don't care if people ride on top because it doesn't affect the train at all. And here's the next chapter!  
  
Ali-Adi – I included the geography before the chapter with some other information too. I'm probably not that clear about stuff like that. Since I'm half Korean I know a lot of the cultural stuff surrounding Korea, so I tend to take it for granted. Sorry!  
  
Anonymous-cat – I thought you'd recognize the Bible verse! I'm gonna bring that back to Mah-yah's mind when she struggles with love later on. Because there really isn't a wordly definition of love, is there? I couldn't think of one. And you're right, Mah-yah never really has been free. But she really doesn't know what freedom is because of that. And about the time period, all this stuff, including this chapter is during the present, or very near past. I set Animorphs from about 1980 – 2000, so North Korean slave camps fit right in, because this stuff started some time after the Korean War (late 50's to early 60's) and is still going on.  
  
Twilek – Don't worry, I'm sure Farooqui will be willing to "explain". *grins* (did I spell his name right? And don't worry, he doesn't read fanfiction.  
  
Even though I'm not going to update right away, please review. Pretty please? 


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six:  
  
"So, you're an alien," Oba stated for at least the sixth time.  
  
I looked at him curiously. Did he have hearing problem, or was he just having a hard time adjusting to that fact?  
  
Eun-hee laughed. "Oba, don't tease Mah-yah like that. She's not used to it."  
  
He was teasing me?  
  
I looked at him more closely and I saw that he was laughing. "I'm sorry," he told me, "But you look so confused when I repeated it and so I thought it was funny."  
  
"How is it funny?"  
  
At that they laughed harder. Oh, whatever. Humans and their humor.  
  
It had been a few hours since we had left the slave camp and we were still stuck in the mountains. Fortunately there hadn't been a recent snow fall so we could walk although the air was still bitterly cold. What month was it?  
  
I backtracked, starting from when I first had landed on Earth. Let me see, I landed in the beginning of what humans call July, and Eun-hee and I spent two months together. We worked in the factory from August to December, and then we went to the slave camp for a little less than two years.  
  
It was November now, and we couldn't live like Eun-hee and I had during the warm months of summer.  
  
"Mah-yah?" Oba called me gently. "What are you thinking about?"  
  
"I've been a human for two and a half years," I pronounced. "And I'm more comfortable as a human than I ever was as an Elemaki."  
  
Eun-hee promptly hugged me. "Don't say sad stuff like that."  
  
Oba laughed as he placed both of his hands on our heads. "C'mon, we need a place to stay for the night. It's going to be really cold."  
  
"Yeah, and you need to find a place to fix your wounds," I pointed out. "Or you're going to have some serious problems with exposure."  
  
Oba looked down at the ground. "It's not that bad."  
  
I looked at him skeptically and then thought to Eun-hee, {let's run at him and hug him.} Before I could give the signal though, she charged at him screaming "Yeeahh!"  
  
Now it was my turn to laugh when I saw Eun-hee knock Oba to the ground in her enthusiasm.  
  
"It's not funny!" he yelled, trying to get up.  
  
"Then why are you smiling?" I asked as sweetly as I could.  
  
"I'm not," he denied, and then his face broke into a wide grin. "You two are the craziest people I have ever met."  
  
Both Eun-hee and him got up and we continued down the mountain until nightfall.  
  
The snow started right before the sun set, and we still hadn't found a place to stay. I told Oba to kneel and then I clambered onto his shoulders to get a better view. He rose unsteadily and held onto my feet while I bent over and grabbed his hair to keep my balance.  
  
"Ow. That's my hair you're pulling out," he commented when I grabbed it.  
  
"I'll fall otherwise."  
  
He shook his head at me and almost made me lose my grip.  
  
"Stop it!" I ordered, and then stretched my neck up as straight as I could while still holding onto his hair.  
  
I looked out over the mountain and could only see more rocks that made up this cursed mountain. I took a gamble and let go of Oba and just stood on his shoulders, my back straight as I looked.  
  
I could see...  
  
"Look!" I shouted in delight. I could see glimpses of trees and grass far below, maybe another day's journey down.  
  
My shout startled Oba who straightened up suddenly, causing me to lose my balance. I felt myself fall backwards and desperately I grabbed at the air, trying to grasp anything that would stop me from bashing my head into the rocks.  
  
Oba acted quickly. He switched his hold on my ankles quickly so that he could keep holding me while I flipped over, hanging upside down.  
  
I stretched out my hands as the ground rushed up to me and then felt myself jerk back up.  
  
I looked out to see Eun-hee's worried face in mine, when Oba unceremoniously dumped me on the ground.  
  
"Ow!" I yelled as I fell in a heap.  
  
In response, Oba clamped his hand over my mouth. "Don't you ever yell again," he told me firmly, not giving me a chance to answer. "There are still soldiers in these mountains, and there are other slave camps. Your shout could have attracted them."  
  
Whoops.  
  
I nodded, his hand still over my mouth and then he released me. "C'mon," he told us. "We have to keep moving. Voices travel far in the mountains and we don't know who could have heard us."  
  
He led us sideways for a while, as we scrambled over rocks bigger than the escape pod that I had landed in had been. The snow was falling more heavily when Oba finally stopped at a shallow depression scooped into the side of the mountain.  
  
"It's snowing too heavily to go any further," he told us. "We'll have to stop here." He then turned to me and said, "I'm sorry for dumping you on the ground. I just really really really really don't want to go back to a slave camp."  
  
I looked at him in confusion. "But I deserved it. I was wrong to yell, and so you punished me."  
  
He winced at that. "Please don't take it that way. It was more of a scared reaction on my part than a planned out vengeance."  
  
"Punishment and vengeance are not that different," I told him, ready to start a debate about the differences between the two.  
  
"We can argue about that later," he told me. "Just know that I'm sorry, ok? We need to worry about surviving now."  
  
Oh yeah. That slight problem of my always getting distracted by thoughts when I needed to act.  
  
The three of us sat down together, trying to get any warmth that could keep us alive for the night.  
  
It was ironic really. Here we were, freezing away merrily free, while we would have been warmer in the huts at the slave camp.  
  
Was freedom worth it?  
  
Was freedom worth death?  
  
Apparently both Eun-hee and Oba thought so.  
  
"Oba," I said quietly.  
  
He turned to me.  
  
The snow had already piled up to our ankles level and we kept having to brush it off our bare skin in order to keep from freezing to death.  
  
"I can light a fire," I told him. "I have a morph that Eun-hee calls a dragon."  
  
Apparently he knew what a dragon was, because his eyes lit up for a second. But the fire there died just as quickly as it had been born. "No. No fire," he said.  
  
"Why?" We were going to die without it!  
  
He said one word. "Soldiers."  
  
Oh yes, those soldiers. They would see, they would see the flickering flame even in this snowstorm and they would come down to investigate, because, after all, killing escaped prisoners did get them a free college education.  
  
College must be horrible if all these horrible guards wanted to go there.  
  
We huddled together, all of us trying vainly to keep warm, fighting against nature in a struggle to survive.  
  
I think I feel asleep at one point because the next thing that I remembered was Oba leaning over me and shaking me, his mouth forming words that I couldn't hear. I was so comfortable, so warm, I couldn't feel a thing, why was he trying to wake me up?  
  
I wanted to tell him to just let me sleep, but I had forgotten which muscles to use to form the words that I wanted to tell him. I tried to tell him in thought-speech, but to my surprise I couldn't remember how to think my thoughts outward. I saw in a daze as Oba turned from me and picked up Eun-hee and then shifted her over until she was clinging to his back. Then he turned to me and picked me up, and did the same thing so that I was clinging to both Eun-hee and him.  
  
He started down the mountain with both of us on his back, occasionally slipping on the snow. I tightened my grip every time he did so until tapped my hand around his neck and said, "You're choking me."  
  
I heard the words, and this time, I forced my hands to move apart, letting him breathe as he continued down the mountain.  
  
I looked down at his feet and saw that they were white, white as the snow that he was walking on.  
  
But white was not a normal color for human skin.  
  
Oba slipped again and he grabbed at an overhanging tree, bringing snow down on our heads. He dropped to one knee with both of us still clinging on, and my extended foot hit a snow covered rock that scraped the top of it, drawing lines of blood.  
  
The pain was almost delicious, the warmth it sent up to me. The heat traveled up my leg, through my body and my neck, and finally to my almost frozen brain.  
  
Why wasn't I morphing?  
  
I let go of Oba just as he got to his feet and the lost weight made him stagger backwards. I grabbed his hand to steady him, and then pulled him down to my face so that I could tell him what I wanted to do.  
  
"I'm going to morph," I spoke, but my frozen lips slurred the words to the point that even I couldn't understand them.  
  
He pointed to his back and indicated that I should get back on, but I shook my head. I told him in thought-speech, {I'm going to morph to Furuqui.} I sent him a mental image of the beast that was big enough to carry both of them but that still would have the agility to move down the mountain with ease.  
  
Oba nodded, and then watched as I forced my brain to think of the animal Furuqui that I had acquired on the planet Hannywats.  
  
Wait.  
  
I started to remove my clothes but stopped at the mere thought of standing naked in a snow storm on a mountain. Instead, I stared at my clothes. They didn't really do much to keep me warm – they were much too thin and ragged.  
  
Thin. They were thin.  
  
I closed my heavy eyelids and then as my limbs exploded out as my clothes became covered in the dirty grayish fur that covered the Furuqui. My snout also moved outward – in fact, almost my entire body just ballooned out from my skinny form, clothes and all.  
  
I stood before Oba, and with four of my ten appendages I picked him and Eun- hee up and set him on my back. I then covered them with these four appendages so that they would stay warm while I would use the remaining six to travel.  
  
I shot down the mountain, my feet never faltering. My mind was awake now in this new body's with its heat and I knew that I would never fall, that this creature's ability to sense objects in the distance was very helpful in a snow storm that I couldn't see two feet through in my human morph.  
  
I let my mind relax and let the Furuqui's mind take over as it continued to race down the mountain, holding its precious cargo on its back. My mind returned to the time that the Andalite soldiers had brought its DNA in, bragging about how easy it had been to kill it once it had gathered up all its young and only had three legs to run on. Apparently the Furuqui held its young in place on its back with two appendages while it moved on the rest, and the more young it had, the slower it could travel.  
  
I mentally grinned, thinking about the people that I carried on my back. I was in no way their parent – in fact, it was rather the opposite. Eun-hee, my sweet twin that had almost taken the place of an Auni, as a sister- mother was called in this culture.  
  
Except for the small fact that an Auni was older than you and Eun-hee was genetically my twin, but in reality three years younger.  
  
No matter. She still acted the part.  
  
And Oba, who truly was my Oba.  
  
That thought led to me another one, when Eun-hee was teaching me the titles of respect for an older sibling.  
  
"Oba means older brother, but only girls use that. Boys call their older brothers Hyung. And girls call their older sisters Auni, but boys call their older sisters Nunah."  
  
When I had asked her why there was a difference, she shrugged her shoulders. "That's just the way it is."  
  
By this time I had made it to the bottom of the mountain, covering a day's distance in thirty minutes. I continued across the countryside a little more cautious now that I was out of the mountains. Soldiers would still be patrolling, and they wouldn't hesitate to shoot anything that was running. Not to mention that there would be the regular North Korean citizens, if you could call these oppressed people that.  
  
After about another thirty minutes the Furuqui began to tire, and so I stopped and lifted Oba and Eun-hee and set them on the ground.  
  
They staggered a little, but they were back to their normal color. I patiently waited for them to speak, but Oba held his finger to his lips and then motioned me into the shadows while holding Eun-hee's hand.  
  
I demorphed in the dark, and when I was done, I asked Oba, "Why did you wake us up?"  
  
He looked grim. "I heard voices, and I didn't want to take the chance of them passing us by."  
  
I stared at him, my energy draining away now that I was back in my human morph.  
  
Human morph? What do you still consider your Elemaki form to be your true self?  
  
Not now, I pleaded. I'll deal with my identity when I am less tired.  
  
"You look exhausted," Oba told me. He looked around. The snow was still covering the ground, but after a ride down in the arms of a Furuqui, he was more alert.  
  
"How long can you stay as that thing?" he asked me suddenly.  
  
"For as long as I like. Only I can't stay over the two hour limit for too many times or I won't be able to morph back."  
  
I guess he didn't quite understand me because he said, "Ok, let's just keep moving forward."  
  
Eun-hee gave a moan of protest. "Can't we just sleep?"  
  
We both looked at her.  
  
"Or just morph that animal again so we can sleep on your back and you can cover us with your arms," she suggested.  
  
I spent the rest of the night as a Furuqui, with Eun-hee and Oba huddled up beneath my four legs that I used to cover them.  
  
Funny, I thought sleepily as the Furuqui part of my mind started dreaming of Hannywats two hours after I had morphed. I was worried about whether I was an Elemaki or a human, and now I am genetically a Furuqui.  
  
But I'm not a Furuqui on the inside. I am...  
  
I am Mah-yah. And that is all I need to be. I guess it doesn't really matter what I look on the outside, as long as I am Mah-yah on the inside.  
  
****************************Review Responses****************************  
  
Sorry I have been away for such a long time! Again, I can't get anything up until about a week later, maybe a day or two before the weekend depending on how busy I am.  
  
Tabatha – Yeah, I think they should teach about that stuff in school too. One reason they don't probably is because it's not "official" meaning that the North Korean government never owns up to these slave camps even though there have been lots of photos and interviews with former guards and prisoners. But then again, the Nazi's never owned up to the concentration camps when they first created them, either!  
  
Anonymous-cat – Humans do have a problem with tolerance. Even the people who claim to be tolerant of everyone still are intolerant of those that they consider intolerant. I've had experience with that. And yes, I love Eun-hee. She doesn't come up much in this chapter. And next chapter I'm going to have more with Oba too. But Eun-hee will come back, never fear.  
  
Custardpringle – Yup, I started a new story. Did you update yours yet? And yes, those teddy bears. I like them, though, they make me feel good. (Don't read too much into that.)  
  
Hey – yeah.  
  
Twilek – don't worry, Farooqui doesn't read fanfiction. Neither does Aliza, or his mom regardless of the fact that she watched MTV.  
  
Hell-Flame-Narf – Yeah, sorry this, chapter is probably a little boring too, but I like to have relationship stuff as well as action. And about the North Korean terrain, I know that the area within the 38th parallel is covered with minefields, but I wasn't aware that it was like that in the northern area. Thanks for your review!  
  
DH L'Orange – Ok, long review! Let me get started. Sang-hwa and his quirky personality trait. Well, after you said that, I was thinking and thinking but I couldn't come up with a good one. I kind of made him paranoid about soldiers since that would fit in with the fact that he was in the slave camp and wouldn't want to go back. If you could think of anything else, I'd be glad to hear it! And no, no conversions of Mah-yah by Eun-hee. Or by Sang-hwa. Remember (I'll be adding this in the next chapter too) that in North Korea there is no such thing as free speech, so just saying "I believe in God" can get you put in a slave camp. So neither of them will have had much practice talking about their faith. Sorry that the lists got old. I was trying to put as much information as I could b/c I knew most people don't know anything about that stuff, but I guess I overdid it. And I'm glad you liked Eun-hee. She really wasn't in this chapter and isn't going to be in the next that much, (since I'm working with Sang-hwa) but she'll come back. And you pronounce his name Sahng-Hwa. Not sang, like the past tense of the verb to sing (I sang a song) but Sah and then ng. Sahng. And Hwa is hwa. Well, more like Hwah, like the "a" in Sahng. And I'm going to have what Sang-hwa thinks of Mah-yah in the next chapter. And no, he gets that only Mah-yah is an alien. She explained the basics of it (which I didn't write about) but I'm going into feelings and stuff next chapter. Ok, wow, thanks for your review!  
  
Ali-Adi – I'm glad you liked that chapter. And human experimentation, yeah, there was a lot of that. Thanks for your review.  
  
Just a notice: I'm asking for tips on how to write a good summary, in order to catch more people's attention. I edited mine, but it doesn't seem to be working. So anything works, just tell me in a review. Thanks! 


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven:  
  
"I was born rich, you know."  
  
Oba's words traveled across the crackling fire to my ears. Born rich.  
  
We had been on the road for several days, and it wasn't until we came close to freezing to death that Oba finally changed his mind about fire. Fire or death, I had said, now as a human. I can't keep morphing and demorphing every two hours.  
  
So he listened, and now we had a fire every night, which was more than what others had.  
  
Too bad we didn't have much food to cook over it.  
  
Which is probably why Oba is having this conversation with me, I mused. To explain why he can't hunt and to apologize for losing the rabbit we had almost caught.  
  
And maybe explain why he was so stupid to take out the gun and unload the gun at the rabbit, missing each time.  
  
We kept the unloaded gun, since we might want to scare people away.  
  
"Oh," I responded. My answer volleyed back through the fire to Oba's waiting face.  
  
"My father was a Party member," he continued, his face lit up by the dancing flames.  
  
I waited, looking at dark face. His face was healing up nicely, I noted. The herb woman's medicines did work, although he would have some scars.  
  
"My mother was beautiful," he stated, almost longingly. I looked closer at his face. Yes, I could see that. Oba's face was very well defined, although the slave camp and the starving hadn't done any good.  
  
I glanced over at Eun-hee's sleeping form. She was curled up in a ball, with a ragged blanket that the herb woman had given us.  
  
"I had a tutor, too," Oba's voice said, causing me to look back at him.  
  
Oba finally looked up. "He taught me a lot. About our wonderful king - Kim Jong Il wasn't a god then."  
  
The bitterness in his voice wasn't hard to hear.  
  
The fire crackled and popped, sending sparks up in the silence that followed.  
  
"How did you get caught, or what did you do?" my voice finally breaking the silence like a pickaxe on rock.  
  
"I didn't do anything," Oba shot back, clearly accenting the "I".  
  
More silence. Then, "My grandfather was accused of being an American collaborator. My father escaped to China, my grandfather killed my mother, his daughter, for marrying a man that would run off like my father did, and then he killed himself."  
  
These words, fired in rapid succession, broke over my head, and traveled past me, past our camp, and past the mountains, past the slave camps only to be caught up with the wind in a moaning cry of despair and utter desolation.  
  
"By the time the soldiers came, everyone else had gone. I was the only one left," Oba's voice continued, trembling slightly.  
  
"How old were you?" I asked, my first question since I had asked him what had happened.  
  
"Ten."  
  
Six years in that slave camp. Three times as long as Eun-hee and I had spent there.  
  
"Do you know why it is such a crime to own a radio?"  
  
Ok, random question. But I guess it makes sense in his mind.  
  
I shook my head.  
  
"Because, the people don't know. They don't know that there are places where people aren't hungry, where everyone has houses, food, and clothes! Where everyone has what the Party members have. I mean, look at us!" He gestured at us, causing my eyes to follow his hand that pointed to our rags, our cuts, our sunken eyes, our swollen joints, and our starving hearts.  
  
If I had never known different, if I had thought that everyone in the world lived like we did, in poverty, cold and hunger, then maybe, just maybe, I would be content to live like this.  
  
And if I had been ingrained with the idea that Kim Jong Il could do no wrong, and that I should love him forever, then I would be content to live in this country.  
  
No wonder anyone who left North Korea or had a radio or had any connection to the outside world was put in a slave camp.  
  
Once they saw what life could be like they would never be satisfied with starving.  
  
Kim's regime lived on the ignorance of its people, the blind devotion of its brainwashed citizens.  
  
But what about the people who spoke to me of Kim with hatred freely?  
  
And how did he know these things anyway?  
  
And Eun-hee knew about America being good, not bad.  
  
Being curious, I asked him about it.  
  
"I don't know who you've met, but they certainly were begging for death talking like that. Only people who've seen what it's like outside North Korea know enough to want to leave. And for Eun-hee, I'm guessing that her parents somehow had contact with outside and told Eun-hee. Which is probably why they were killed. As for me, I listen. I've listened to the American and British prisoners talk, I've listened to the occasional Japanese citizen that was abducted, and I've heard the Koreans that escaped up North to China talk about what it was like there. All in very hushed voices," he said with a twisted smile.  
  
"Is that how you became a Christian?" I asked.  
  
He was silent for a moment, and again all I heard was the fire as it hissed and popped.  
  
The fire was almost a part of our conversation, with all the silence and pauses.  
  
"I met a man there that saved my life. He taught me about it," Oba said suddenly. He stared into the flames. "I don't know how to talk about it – I never have. It's not something that is usually brought up in a conversation."  
  
"Yeah," I agreed. "It kind of reminds me of how we aren't supposed to say anything bad about the Andalite government. It's actually funny, I never even thought of blaming the Andalites or the Andalite government until I came here."  
  
Oba nodded, his face reflecting the fire as it continued to wave. I stretched out my hands to warm them, and then thought of another question.  
  
"So, what was it like? Being rich, I mean."  
  
Oba's eyes got a distant look in them as they narrowed, searching through his memory. "There was always food," he finally decided. "And we had a car. I remember learning about North Korea and how I was going to serve this Democratic People's Republic of Korea when I was older. It's really quite hazy," he confessed. "Six years at that slave camp kind of beat it all out of me."  
  
He hesitated for the briefest second then plunged ahead. "So, tell me what it was like at your home."  
  
I also paused for a moment. "Well, I never had a problem with food. You know that we eat with our hooves, getting the nutrients that way, and so as long as there was grass, and believe me, the planet was covered with grass, we weren't hungry. And I had a brother."  
  
I stopped, thinking about Osgaron. My beloved brother that had been dead for, what, three years now?  
  
"What was he like?"  
  
Oba's question startled me for a moment. "Oh, um, he was, actually like you," I admitted.  
  
"But I thought that he was your twin?"  
  
I frowned. "Yes, but he acted older. He was a boy, you know," I hastily added.  
  
Oba smiled. "I learned about that in school too. How in the old days, those horrible old days of wicked kings, women were treated much lower than men. Now they have an equal chance under the Kim's bright new leadership. But that only happens in the Party. The farmers pretty much live like they lived a hundred years ago."  
  
I blinked, confused. "I never thought about that," I confessed slowly. "About the difference between boys and girls."  
  
Oba shrugged. "Well, anyway, go to bed. It's getting late. And you'd better put out the fire."  
  
I obediently morphed to a slimy creature that oozed some kind of slow moving liquid from pores all over its body that quickly smothered the fire without leaving any smoke. I then crawled up next to Eun-hee to sleep back to back to get as much warmth as possible.  
  
To my surprise, when I crawled up, Eun-hee giggled.  
  
"I was wondering how long you would be talking," she told me in a whisper. "I was going to tell you to go to bed, but you were talking about me, so I wanted to hear."  
  
I whispered back, "I only wanted to know about how you knew about America."  
  
She yawned, and then turned over to face me. "My parents told me." Her brow darkened thinking about them, and then cleared. "It's ok, they're in Heaven now."  
  
Right.  
  
I lay down in her arms as we hugged each other for warmth. Oba came a little later and held both of us as we lay in the almost frozen ground, hoping to survive until the morning.  
  
When I thought back, I really didn't know why I wanted to survive so badly. The conditions were horrible, we were all dying slowly of starvation, and everyday meant no food and more cold.  
  
Well, that day we got food.  
  
The next morning we continued to trudge along, Eun-hee with her blanket wrapped around her for warmth. Oba walked in front, breaking the wind, as we followed closely behind.  
  
All of us were walking on the surest path to death.  
  
"Did you know," Oba said suddenly, turning around, "that during times like these people ate each other?"  
  
It took a second for that fact to sink in. Humans ate each other?  
  
"Is this a normal occurrence?" I asked, careful to keep my voice neutral.  
  
Oba started to laugh, but it turned into a cough instead. "No, it isn't normal, it's... terrible."  
  
Eun-hee shuddered as if at a memory had escaped from the depths of her mind. I sneaked a look at her, but she was staring into the distance.  
  
"Look," she whispered.  
  
I looked, and ahead of us was a crowd of people. Instinctively we slowed, and huddled together.  
  
"What do we do?" I asked.  
  
"We'll go past them. Follow me," he ordered curtly.  
  
We followed timidly, terrified of looking afraid.  
  
Once we got closer we had to push our way through the crowds. More than once I thought that I had lost Eun-hee and Oba only to catch a glimpse of them through the crowds, Oba striding forward purposefully and Eun-hee trailing a few feet behind.  
  
I hurried after them, and bumped into a man. Immediately I apologized but I guess the man didn't hear because he planted both feet into the ground and shoved me further into the crowd.  
  
I crashed to the ground and several people turned at the sound.  
  
No one helped me up.  
  
"Oba?" I called, now truly afraid. "Eun-hee?"  
  
I got no answers except for growls from the people around me.  
  
A hand shot out and yanked me forward, causing me to stumble. I fell right into Oba's arms, his hand holding a death grip on my arm.  
  
He pulled my face close to his. "Don't you ever scare me like that again," he hissed. Still holding my arm, he turned to Eun-hee who was still following him quite placidly.  
  
"We need to get out of here," he said, almost to himself. "I don't like the feel of this."  
  
As if to prove his ominous feelings correct, blood-curdling shrieks began filling the air, and the crowd around us surged forward.  
  
"I'm tired of waiting," I heard a woman say. Others around her murmured their agreement.  
  
People pushed past us, people pushed into us, shoving us forward into the center of the crowd. Eun-hee and I would have been swept away if Oba hadn't still been grimly hanging onto both us by then, and even so his grip had to be strong.  
  
I still remember his fingers around my arm, almost cutting off my circulation, just so that we could stay together.  
  
So that he could look after us.  
  
That iron grip on my arm meant more to me than any soft words could have.  
  
We kept getting pushed along until finally the circle broke open and we stumbled out into the open that became crowded with people as soon as we broke through.  
  
But not before I saw several dead horses on the ground, with people kneeling beside them.  
  
My first thought: food.  
  
Oba and Eun-hee and I now also joined the surge of people scrambling to get at the meat. We fought, we pinched, and we prodded until the three of us were also on our knees cramming the entrails and organs of the horse into our starving mouths.  
  
We had just had a mouthful when bigger adults, who were just as desperate, shoved us aside, some taking the food out of our hands and mouths. One of them hit at Oba but he ducked, and continued to gorge on the raw meat.  
  
"Stupid kids! Get out of the way!" I heard others shout the same thing.  
  
Now, I didn't know about humans, but I did know that whenever Andalites got together in a large group, and emotions were high strung, dangerous things could happen.  
  
I was too hungry to care.  
  
Shove it down, everything, all that bloody red meat, eat, eat, eat because tomorrow you will die, and you will most definitely die if you don't eat.  
  
The mutterings were louder and more dangerous but the crying of my aching and shrunken stomach was louder.  
  
Eat, eat, rip the flesh open with your teeth, nothing matters now except the food.  
  
I could believe that humans ate each other if they were as hungry as I was now.  
  
I felt someone pull me away and throw me to the ground, kicking me. I bowed my head and tried to crawl back to the dead horse, my mind only on one thing.  
  
Must eat.  
  
But the crowd surrounded it, and Oba and Eun-hee were being shoved out too, and the hands that shoved us, the feet that kicked us, they weren't gentle.  
  
No! Must have food, eat it while it's there, dripping with blood, who cares, its food!  
  
I heard someone cry and I realized it was me; my mouth was open crying as people kicked me in the stomach trying to make me throw up the precious food that I had eaten.  
  
Never, you will never take what I have in me from me; I would rather eat it up again than lose it.  
  
I heard Eun-hee cry as well, and Oba as we were slowly shoved backwards, away from the live-giving food, to hungrier people who were attacking us, trying to eat the food stains around our mouths, trying to taste any flavor that we would have left over.  
  
All three of us were black and blue by the time we finally stumbled out of the crowd. Eun-hee and Oba both had bloody noses, Oba had lost his gun and I had a black eye.  
  
For a moment we stood at the edge of the crowd, tempted to join the mob that was by now fighting each other in desperation to get food.  
  
I noticed children at the edge like us, staring in, knowing that they would be beaten to a pulp if they tried to enter.  
  
I turned away. I couldn't look.  
  
"Let's go," Eun-hee whispered, and I looked back at her and saw that she had lost her blanket.  
  
*******************************Author's Note*************************  
  
I'm really sorry that I can't respond to your reviews now, but I have like five minutes before class starts to upload at all and stupid fanfiction was "busy" last night. I will respond next chapter! 


	8. Chapter 8

Note: I just went online and found out that the Yalu river is called the Yalu river in China, but it is called the Amnok river in Korea. So I'm fixing that mistake in this chapter. Sorry! And gang means river, so Amnok- gang means Amnok river which is the same thing as Yalu river. Thanks!  
  
Chapter 8:  
  
The moon was half full the night we saw the Amnok-gang.  
  
It was a huge body of water, shining even in the little moonlight that was there.  
  
I glanced uneasily at the moon. It still unnerved me, that there was only one moon, besides the fact that it was dead. I also didn't like it that some nights there was no moon. In the Andalite Home World there was always at least part of one moon shining in the sky.  
  
I had gotten more used to it over the years, but tonight the sight of its cold, pale half face was making me uneasy.  
  
I guess it was making Oba nervous too, because he kept glancing at it over his shoulder.  
  
Eun-hee was the only one who seemed untouched by the moon's relentless gaze.  
  
Then again, Eun-hee would be content whether the moon was full or gone. She was generally content, regardless of the situation.  
  
"Hurry."  
  
Oba's voice broke through the silence imposed by the brooding half-moon. We increased our speed until we had caught up to him, about four hundred feet from the edge of the Amnok.  
  
The edge of freedom.  
  
That was when the first shots rang out.  
  
I saw Oba's eyes grow wide, and again felt his familiar grip on my arm. I heard Eun-hee breathe in and out more and more quickly as we began to run, and I both smelled and tasted the terror emitting from all three of us.  
  
I was getting good at analyzing all these human senses.  
  
Shut up, Mah-yah, and concentrate on running.  
  
Three hundred feet left, keep going...  
  
I noticed other people around me, other refugees that also were sprinting towards the Amnok, desperate for freedom, desperate to survive, desperate enough to plunge into its icy waters...  
  
The half-moon went under a cloud and I stumbled, unable to see where I was going.  
  
I never forgave myself for doing that.  
  
I tripped and fell, Oba's hand still gripping my arm. "Run!" I shouted, scrambling up. Eun-hee and Oba didn't run, they stopped for precious seconds and hauled me up.  
  
The soldiers were gaining on us, no they would take us back, I couldn't stand the thought of more time in a slave camp, and from the weeping and cursing around us I could tell that they couldn't either.  
  
The moon came out from the cloud and shined on us, showing us off to the approaching predators.  
  
Run, duck, weave, survive, because you're a prey and you'll always be one.  
  
We were almost there...  
  
But how could we outrun tanks? How could we outrun military jeeps?  
  
How could we outrun death?  
  
Almost there...  
  
We were a few feet from the banks of the Amnok when I heard a shot ring out and Oba grunt.  
  
He fell, dragging us down with him in his grip, and the moon shined on the spilling blood, a bullet had hit him, severing his spinal cord, tearing up his kidneys and his intestines.  
  
No. No no no no no no no.  
  
I leapt up, prying his hand from my arm. Eun-hee was trembling, tears spilling as she too got up.  
  
We both turned to the Amnok, ready to jump across if that was what we had to do when another shot rang out, then another, and another and I heard Eun- hee cry out, I saw her drop to her knees holding her side  
  
And that was when I lost it.  
  
The feelings that filled me were terrible. They weren't the feelings of desperation that I had felt when starving with Eun-hee, they weren't the feelings of hopelessness as in the slave camp, and they weren't the feelings of calm decision as when I stood up to the guards in the slave camp.  
  
Murderous, murderous, bitter rage filled me, engulfed me, and I tasted it and it was sweet.  
  
You will pay.  
  
My morph exploded out from me, but in my rage I couldn't concentrate. I was a mix of DNA, a mix of creatures from Earth and from other planets across the whole galaxy. I shot upward on horse's legs, my hands remaining my own and an Elemaki tail shot out of the horse's body. My head melted and hardened into a dragon's head, barely holding its own weight up until its huge powerful neck also formed from my thin pale one.  
  
I was a monster, a hideous beast, and I was ready to kill.  
  
I rushed forward into the approaching troops, my flames melting the cars, as the soldiers fell over each other in attempt to get out. My tail flailed about, knocking soldiers aside, cutting open their skulls as often as not, and my human hands picked up a semi that one of them had dropped.  
  
Blood, blood, give it to me, I thirst for you, come to me blood, I'm calling your name, you know me, come.  
  
Fire roaring, soldiers burning, legs kicking, bones breaking, tail-blade lashing, blood spilling, hands shooting, humans dying.  
  
And I loved it.  
  
I was a spider, a glutton spider sitting on her web, trapping insects to suck their blood, I was a raging fire, destroying trees in minutes and seconds, I was a black hole, sucking men's lives and  
  
I was a sentient being, taking the lives of other sentient beings.  
  
But I didn't stop.  
  
I didn't stop until all of them, all some seventy of them lay either dead, or charred, their vehicles broken or mutilated, until I myself collapsed from my wounds and from exhaustion, and from  
  
Hate. Hating takes a lot of energy.  
  
I woke up when I felt a small body brush my heaving and bleeding flank.  
  
"Mah-yah," the voice said.  
  
Mah-yah? Who was she? I was the killer, the murderer, the one who ate lives and  
  
"Mah-yah," the voice said again, this time with a note of pleading. "Please become a human."  
  
Human. A picture formed in my mind of a small Asian girl, with tilted eyes and an upturned face.  
  
And I was Mah-yah again, I was the girl that cried in Eun-hee's lap as she petted and stroked me, as she told me that she loved me, as she cried in my hair, as we both wept over what I had done and over what had happened.  
  
And when we were both done we remembered Oba who had died seconds from freedom and we got up, me supporting Eun-hee who couldn't walk because of the bullet still lodged in her body.  
  
The soldiers' remains were burned, the other refugees were dead or escaped and Oba's body lay face down in the dirt by the Amnok-gang.  
  
We knelt by his body and Eun-hee began murmuring while I turned him over.  
  
His eyes were open, but his face was alight. Not a smile, but the look of someone who has been given something that they had hoped for all their life, but had never received until then.  
  
I closed his eyes but it didn't take away from his expression, rather it heightened to the point that I envied him in death.  
  
Oh, Oba, couldn't you have taken us with you!  
  
Oh, Oba, if I had just not stumbled, then you would be alive; we would be across the river, together, a family.  
  
I touched his face, looked at Eun-hee who was still holding her bleeding side, and then closed my eyes and acquired him.  
  
This time I morphed under my rags, instead of taking them with me into the DNA.  
  
When I had fully morphed, I got up, and picked up Oba's body, with his own strong arms. Eun-hee remained kneeling, eyes closed, head bowed, hands folded.  
  
I hope you find comfort, Eun-hee. Because I can't.  
  
I lifted my arms with all of Oba's strength and threw his body into the Amnok-gang where it would float east into the ocean.  
  
Where it would join my brother's body.  
  
I turned to Eun-hee and picked her up, cradling her.  
  
"Let's go find help," I told her with Oba's deeper voice.  
  
She nodded, and turned her head into my chest and wept.  
  
I walked along the edge of the Amnok-gang, carrying Eun-hee, looking for someone – anyone – to help us.  
  
I saw a small house in the distance, and I gently lay Eun-hee down and demorphed. I didn't want to go over the two hour time span too many times, so I might as well demorph now, I reasoned.  
  
I ran towards the house and knocked on the door. A woman came out.  
  
"Yes? What do you want?"  
  
"My sister is hurt," I told her. "She needs help."  
  
She looked to where I was pointing, and then strode briskly forward. Reaching down, she brushed some hair out of Eun-hee's face. "Very well. We will help you."  
  
She reached down and picked Eun-hee up and carried her into the house, and I followed her.  
  
The family was too eager.  
  
Too eager to help, too grasping, too much looking at us and sizing us up. There was a father, mother, and an eight year old girl like us who stared at us from corners, and a baby who was about two years old.  
  
We stayed there that night, me waiting by Eun-hee's side as she gasped for breath, gritting her teeth each time any movement caused her pain.  
  
The next morning she was weak, so weak that she could barely whisper. "Mah- yah," she started.  
  
"Shhh," I said, and placed my finger over her lips. "Don't talk. Save your strength."  
  
"Mah-yah," she started again. "I need to talk to you. I don't think that I'll make it."  
  
Tears came to my eyes as I shook my head. "Don't say that. Of course you'll make it."  
  
Eun-hee coughed, and held her eyes tight against the pain. "Mah-yah, I need to tell you something."  
  
I waited, but at that moment a hand came down on my shoulder and a pistol rested next to my temple.  
  
"Get up," the father said.  
  
Eun-hee looked up in concern, and forced her limbs to move herself while I barely contained my rage. How dare they! Those... those...  
  
Starving humans.  
  
My anger dissipated, remembering my own hunger, and what I would have done to satisfy it.  
  
Once outside, I saw another man, lean and strong but older leaning against the house.  
  
"Here is the money," he said, and handed over some cash to the father who took it with greedy hands.  
  
No, with needy hands.  
  
The next thing drove all compassion from my heart.  
  
"This girl's a devil," he said. "We've seen how she paces around and can't control herself. So put your gun to the other girl's head," he nodded at Eun-hee, "and this one," moving his pistol slightly, "will follow."  
  
I saw numbly as the other man took out his own gun and placed it next to Eun-hee's head.  
  
No.  
  
I spun around with such ferocity that the father took a step backwards. I snatched the gun from him and aimed it straight at his heart, firing.  
  
He jerked at the impact of the gun and slid backwards, hitting the ground. I then turned to the rest of the family and shot the mother and her baby with one bullet.  
  
I stared at the eight year old girl who was trembling, shaking, as I aimed the gun at her and fired a single bullet that snapped her head back, killing her instantly.  
  
I could faintly hear Eun-hee moaning, "No, Mah-yah, no," but over her came the voice of the man clearly. "Drop the gun or I will shoot your little friend."  
  
I dropped it.  
  
"Thank you for disposing of them. Now get the money from the man and hand it to me."  
  
I obeyed.  
  
"Now get up in front. I'm going to follow with this little girl, and if you make one suspicious move..."  
  
The threat was evident, and I walked forward.  
  
"Good. Now move."  
  
I forced my trembling legs to walk, horrified at the fact that I wasn't horrified of the killing. What happened to me? I wondered, while I kept my legs moving.  
  
The man guided us back the way we had come, all the while explaining how he was a pearl fisher and how he had needed another kid to get the oysters that held precious pearls so that he could sell them.  
  
I tuned him out, still in shock, still in fear, still in terror, when it clicked.  
  
No.  
  
Solethi's voice echoed back to me. {The government is scared of Nadar, because we are the perfect killers. 3rd gen are war lovers. 2nd gen are the apathetic killers. Killing is like breathing air to them. If you try and take the fighting away, they'll fight for it or die. If you give them more, they'll breathe it. Other than that, they don't care. 1st gen, now they scare me. Absolutely cold-blooded killers. They have horrible childhoods, and they are ruthless. 2nd gen usually are pretty miserable too, but they won't kill as often as they will, so they are not as bad as 1st gen who kill every chance they get.}  
  
Ruthless murderers, that was what I had thought at that time.  
  
No.  
  
I was a first generation...  
  
Say it Mah-yah. It's no more than you deserve.  
  
Nadar.  
  
******************************Review Responses**************************  
  
Whew! And that is why my chronicles are called the Nadar Chronicles. See why I couldn't explain? And isn't this way much better? And I know that I updated this soon so that some of you didn't get a chance to review the previous chapter – that's ok, go ahead and review and I'll answer your comment and questions for this one and chapter seven in chapter nine. Ok, review responses!  
  
Twilek – for chapter seven, you know why furuqui is there...  
  
Anonymous-cat – for chapter seven, oh yes, how she came to terms with her identity. I'm going to have fun with that. And the rest of the questions are pretty much answered with cheese. And yeah, when I read about the famine and slave camps in NK, I wanted to do something too! I guess this is kind of how I'm doing it, to promote awareness of it, at least. Writing brings a lot to people's attention. I guess that's partly what I'm doing here, just writing for practice so I can get really good, and then take it the publisher's stage to write about other things that people don't really know about.  
  
Tabatha – for chapter seven, yeah, she got her family back, but Oba's gone now. It's actually funny, I didn't have Oba in my original plans for the story, but he just kind of sneaked in. I wonder if that will happen to other parts of my story. Anway, I had a question. Did you think that Oba was a little drawn back as a character? My problem is that I kill characters in my mind way before I write about them in my story, so they are already dead to me. So I just wanted to make sure I gave him plenty of life.  
  
Hey – yeah (sorry I'm too lazy to type a long response when I can just tell it to you)  
  
DH L'Orange – well, about summaries, I was trying to do the short sentence thing, like North Korea. Slave camps. Andalites. Or something like that, but I think I ended up not doing that because I wanted to put more information in. Oh, well. And I tried to put a little more bossiness in Oba the last chapter (can't really do that anymore, since he's dead). It's actually funny, after I read your review I went downstairs and asked my sister what anti-trait, I'll call it, would be good for Oba, and she said the exact same thing as you! And it made sense, too, with the Asian culture of girls being subservient to guys, and younger people honoring older ones. I'm glad you liked the Furuqui. I'm having fun with all these animals. And yes, Mah-yah and Eun-hee were going to die from exposure before Oba woke them up. And whoa, about how are they going to sneak out, well, actually the DMZ (demilitarized zone) is between North Korea and South Korea. They are in North Korea right now, the communist country. This kind of stuff doesn't happen in South Korea. They are trying to sneak across the Yalu/Amnok river to get to China, and then go to America from there. Actually, most people try to get to South Korea after living in China for a while, but I'm just having Eun-hee's childish dreams of America (which really does mean beautiful country in Korean) take them there. And the original purpose of the story. What do you mean by that? My original purpose is pretty much to just tell about Mah-yah's life, there really isn't anything else. Tell me next review, and I'll see what I can do. And thanks – I really love your reviews, they give me so much good insight.  
  
Ali-Adi – Um, I think that Eun-hee means silver, or silver girl or something like that. I'll ask my mom tomorrow to be absolutely sure, and then I'll get back to you. And I'm glad you think that I'm improving! I've been running this part in my story over and over again in my head, so it should be good!  
  
Custardpringle – here I am, updating right away. And I reread your story, and it was good. (And God said let there be light, and it was good.) Sorry, I couldn't resist. That's actually not really correct, but oh well. And speaking of not resisting... Trenty! I love scaring you. (  
  
Hell-Flame-Narf – sure, that would be great. I would like to read some more fanfics, but I usually only read the ones that I have already started and that I marked to note me when they write. And I'm glad that my characters seem real to you. I hope I did that with Oba, even though he is dead now.  
  
Jumba-jookiba – sorry that your review didn't show up – fanfiction server is messed up like that sometimes. I'm supposed to have like 44 reviews, and only 40 are showing. And no, this chronicle is going to have more than 10 chapters. That was just the first one. And there will be three official Nadar Chronicles with Mah-yah. After that... well, I'm getting ahead of myself. And it wouldn't make sense now anyways. And about the herb woman, she was just mentioned, I didn't include a scene about her. And thank you for your crowd, I feel very special now! *grins*  
  
Review! You know you want to! Just a little review, to tell me that you are reading! 


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine:  
  
The pearl fisher led us forward, finally shutting up about his profession. I was still walking forward when I heard Eun-hee gasp and then fall to the ground.  
  
I whirled around just in time to see the pearl fisher kick her.  
  
"Get up," he ordered, in a bored tone.  
  
Instantly my eyes flashed and I started forward but the man jerked his gun, reminding me of his power over Eun-hee and therefore over me.  
  
"It'll be fun breaking you," he said, with a gleam in his eyes, as Eun-hee pushed herself up on trembling arms.  
  
We continued to walk, past the area with all the dead soldiers. I heard the pearl fisher whistle, and then he hurried us forward, Eun-hee's breaths growing more and more ragged.  
  
We walked for another hundred feet, and then finally stopped besides a boat moored on the shore.  
  
Out in the center of the river there was a boat, almost a metal raft with sides. It was rocking softly, held in place by the skillful hands of many children, all of them younger than Eun-hee and me.  
  
A boy was at the moored boat as well, and as the pearl fisher approached, the boy shrunk back into himself.  
  
Did the pearl fisher cause so much fear that these children wouldn't leave even if he was gone?  
  
What did he do to these kids?  
  
A horrible thought flashed through my mind and I would have fled if that pistol hadn't been pushing against Eun-hee's slanted brow.  
  
The three of us got into the boat and the boy pushed the boat off shore and clambered in. The other children pulled us in by a rope attached to the stern of the boat.  
  
All four of us got out when we reached the metal island, and the other children scrambled to put the boat away, all in silence.  
  
The silence was getting on my nerves.  
  
"Stay here," the pearl fisher ordered, and then dumped Eun-hee on the floor. I immediately knelt by her, while the man continued to stride forward, barking orders to the kids around him.  
  
I held Eun-hee's death cold hands as she struggled for breath, gripping my hands with all the remaining strength she had.  
  
I returned her grip, no longer having the heart to resist her. Speak, Eun- hee, and I will listen.  
  
"Mah-yah," she whispered, so quietly that I had to hold my breath to hear as she closed her eyes in the effort to speak.  
  
I looked across the dark waters to North Korea, then over to China on the other side.  
  
I could make it...  
  
But only if I left Eun-hee.  
  
I turned my head back to Eun-hee.  
  
I would stay with her until she died.  
  
"What do you want?" I asked her, also in a whisper.  
  
She smiled, her eyes still closed. "Mah-yah, I want you to know that I love you, no matter what."  
  
I closed my eyes against tears and bowed my head. I didn't deserve this.  
  
And Eun-hee didn't deserve death.  
  
Suddenly Eun-hee gripped my hands tightly and opened her eyes. "Mah-yah, promise me this."  
  
I waited.  
  
"Swear on whatever you hold sacred, swear that you will not kill this man. Swear that you will hold your anger in."  
  
What could do I do?  
  
"I swear by the Nadar oath that I will not kill this man."  
  
Eun-hee smiled, satisfied. But almost immediately she sat up again.  
  
"Oh, Mah-yah," she whispered vehemently. "Swear to me that you will protect Earth."  
  
Protect Earth? Me? But... why? What had Earth ever done for me?  
  
Or for Eun-hee.  
  
"Swear that you will protect Earth from anything, and anyone, from Yeerks, from Andalites. Protect humans. Protect them from each other."  
  
She stopped for a moment, and then with intensity that I didn't know she had, she said, "Protect them from people like you who only to need a chance to love and be loved. Oh, Mah-yah, do not lose Control!"  
  
She was weeping now, like me, like everyone, like whole world, like the galaxies, like the universe, like the being she called God, we were all weeping when the pearl fisher returned and yanked my beautiful Eun-hee to her feet.  
  
"Swear it!"  
  
I swore it.  
  
The pearl fisher dragged her to the edge of the boat, and forced her to kneel, head over the edge of the boat while I knelt paralyzed by my vow.  
  
And oh, Eun-hee the gun came flashing out you cried "I love you Mah-yah!" and I told you that I loved you too and the bullet shot and I stopped, I held myself back, I remembered my vows, and he tossed you overboard and you went east, with Oba, with your family, with my brother and my mother you went to cross the Sea of Stars.  
  
For your sake, I hoped that you found your God.  
  
But I never hated Him more than I had at that moment.  
  
"That should bend you for now. The first blow until you break," the pearl fisher told me, standing over me. "Unless you're already broken now?"  
  
I shook my head, weeping, not sure if I was agreeing with him or not.  
  
He turned impatiently, but turned back.  
  
"By the way, you will refer to me as Master."  
  
I almost laughed. Oh yes, I was used to referring to other people as Master.  
  
I wondered for a moment what would happen if I refused.  
  
But what was the point? Master was only a word, and if this man was fool enough to think that he could force respect from me by having me to refer to him as Master, then I wouldn't care to reveal the truth to him.  
  
"Yes, Master."  
  
He grunted, almost surprised, and then turned away.  
  
I waited for a few minutes on the deck of the boat still shuddering, trying not to sob when I felt small hands touch me.  
  
I looked up into the face of the Korean boy that had brought us to the metal boat.  
  
"Don't cry," he said, and then hugged me, or tried to, at least and ended up hugging my head.  
  
I wept harder, shaking my head free of his embrace. "Don't hug me," I told him. "I don't deserve it."  
  
He cocked his head, obviously puzzled.  
  
I shook my head again "Never mind."  
  
I breathed deeply, trying to stop my crying, and then asked the boy, "What's your name?"  
  
He shrugged. "I don't have one."  
  
Pity swept over me as I looked at this boy who couldn't have been much older than five. He had lived a nameless life, one without love, and he still had enough to give some to me?  
  
He reminded me of Eun-hee.  
  
Oh, Eun-hee!  
  
Was I condemned to lose everyone that I loved?  
  
For a second, I stared, horrified by this fact. My mother, then my brother, then Oba, then Eun-hee...  
  
If I loved this child...  
  
"I will name you," I said impulsively.  
  
He looked at me with inquiring eyes.  
  
I thought of all the names I knew, Andalite/Elemaki ones, human ones, but they were few.  
  
"I will name you Osgaron."  
  
And may you not meet the same fate as my own brother.  
  
The boy tried out the name as Eun-hee had done with mine three years ago.  
  
"Ahs-gah?"  
  
His small mouth couldn't form the rest of the name.  
  
"Ok," I told him. "Ahs-gah."  
  
I looked around at the other kids who had been watching us. "Do you have names, too?"  
  
Slowly, shyly, they began to tell me their names.  
  
Soh-la, a shy, quiet six year old Korean girl who had been named after the seashells that her mother had loved.  
  
Ahiko, another girl, two years older than Soh-la who had been kidnapped from the main island of Japan three years ago.  
  
Kojiro, a small boy of four years who had also been abducted by the pearl fisher from Japan.  
  
Yacapin, a seven year old boy from the Philippines who face bore many scars from beatings – from the pearl fisher or before, I didn't know.  
  
Byung-eh, another Korean girl who was only three, and yet who couldn't stop pouring out words from her tiny mouth.  
  
Katapang, an eight year old Filipino who scowled when I asked him his name but readily told me, his face showing his starving want for love.  
  
Xing Bai, a seven year old Chinese boy who had fled from abuse only to be made a slave by this fisher of pearls.  
  
Donglu, Xing Bai's sister, a timid four-year-old who clung to her brother at all times.  
  
And Ahs-gah, the first of the children to embrace me.  
  
All together, myself included, we were ten.  
  
But not for long.  
  
Katapang, who was my age, helped me up and showed me around the boat. He spoke in broken Korean, explaining that Soh-la had taught him some basic words needed to communicate.  
  
The Master had taught him the rest.  
  
I threw myself in my tasks, hoping to drown out my memories with my new life.  
  
But Eun-hee's words kept echoing back to me, especially, "Mah-yah, do not lose Control!"  
  
The way she had said it made it sound like control with a capital C. Control.  
  
Oh, Eun-hee...  
  
Check your grief, Mah-yah. Hold it in. Do not lose Control.  
  
So I swallowed my tears, I didn't weep, and I bowed my head.  
  
That night, though, I lost Control, weeping, shuddering at everything I had lost.  
  
And I swore again, I looked up at the stars and swore that I would protect the humans, I would protect humanity from aliens, from each other, and from Nadar.  
  
For I had become a dangerous creature, one that couldn't be trusted, one that would explode into rages at the slightest offense.  
  
And I vowed to myself that I would have Control, that I would not allow my anger to get any hold on me, I would let it out slowly, until I was the master and I controlled my anger, not the other way around.  
  
If I hadn't lost Control, then maybe...  
  
Maybe Eun-hee would still be alive.  
  
No. Don't consider that possibility. Don't even think about it.  
  
If I had sneaked away with Eun-hee after Oba had been killed during the firing...  
  
I will never allow myself to lose Control again.  
  
In that way I would become an even more dangerous creature, but I would know what I was doing, and I would not lose myself and bring harm to any more that I loved.  
  
For I already loved these children who looked at me with starving eyes – the same eyes that I saw in Eun-hee, in Oba, in all the children of the world that didn't have love.  
  
I dried my tears and turned over on the floor, wrapping myself with my blanket.  
  
I would fulfill my vow, even if it never killed me.  
  
*******************************Review Responses*************************  
  
Sorry, this one is a little shorter than the others. No real notes for this one - just enjoy and then review!  
  
Anonymous-cat – Yeah, I guess that Mah-yah becoming a Nadar does seem like a plot twister. It's weird, because I came up with all these ideas like two years ago, and I never wrote them down till now, so they seem to occur normally. And you're right; the Andalites should stop their behavior if they don't want Nadar. I think that they are more interested in killing them off as much as possible so they don't have to be kind. It's a lot easier to hurt others than to be kind to them.  
  
Twilek – You reviewed chapter eight before chapter seven. What was your mind on? Farooqui? *grins evilly*  
  
DH L'Orange – I'm glad you liked Oba's background. My sister said that it was a good twist that he was rich, since it normally wouldn't be expected. And you liked that line, about the wind catching up Oba's words? I did too. So did my sister, actually. I like to work on certain lines so that they are really powerful. I'm hoping to get my writing to the point that I can have lines like that, or at least convey that kind of feeling in all of my writing. And yes, Mah-yah connects North Korea and the Andalite Home World. Often times you have to go somewhere else to really see what your homeland is like. Wait. You said that Mah-yah sounded cynical, or not, when she was like Right. To Eun-hee's "it's ok, they're in Heaven now." Which one? And the crowd scene was gross, but I was trying to convey the hunger that they would have felt. I like to make points with my writing, even if I'm not sure what the point is. Thanks!  
  
Random Pirate – Oh yeah, but you have to remember that getting out of a slave camp is about as easy as getting out of a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. And, you know how people hold their emotions in and in until they finally lose it, even over a small thing (the feather that broke the camel's back) and so that was what happened to Mah-yah. Also, she wasn't a Nadar then, so she still wasn't used to killing. I mean, I've never killed anyone, and I doubt I could, unless it was really serious. And you like Mah- yah's becoming a Nadar? It's not exactly a good thing that she killed all those people, so you're right, it is kind of depressing. But I guess you liked it that she finally acted, instead of just taking it, even though she overreacted. And you will definitely be seeing more of me soon!  
  
Ali-Adi – Yeah, I was telling other people that I have everything in my head, so little things that don't make sense to my readers make sense to me, which is why I put them in. But that's ok; I didn't really expect anything to click, because I am kind of vague about a center thread tying everything together.  
  
Special Thanks to my beta, who is fantastic and beautiful and wonderful and talented and a genius. With out her, I'd be a microscopic blob.  
  
The above statement was written by my beta, not by me. 


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten:  
  
I didn't wake up until the sun's first golden rays touched my face to announce the dawning day.  
  
The sound of waves lapping against the sides of the metal boat was what got me up.  
  
Not to mention the extremely loud voice of Master screaming into my ear.  
  
"Get up, you lazy girl!" he shouted, slapping me fully awake.  
  
I got up right away when he began dragging me over to the edge of the boat, probably intending to hold my head underwater while I struggled for breath.  
  
Five minutes later I sat gasping for breath, kneeling by the edge of the boat, water dripping from my hair and running down my face.  
  
I learned to get up quickly in the mornings.  
  
The work was relatively simple. Diving during the day time for pearls, which we would hand over to the pearl fisher, who would do who knows what with them.  
  
I didn't even know that pearls existed before I started diving for them.  
  
I didn't even know how to swim before I was tossed into the water with a brick tied around my ankle to keep me down there until I found a pearl, whereupon I was expected to grab the pearl, the brick, and kick my way back to the surface.  
  
I learned how to swim quickly. Just like I learned to get up in the mornings quickly.  
  
Byung-eh, the three year old, helped me the first time I was thrown overboard. Panicking, I had clawed at the water, but the pressure against my fingers wasn't enough to pull me back up.  
  
"Help!" I had tried to scream, and instead got to swallow a whole bunch of seawater from the stupid Sea of Japan. Or stupid East Sea, as the South Koreans called it. Or stupid East Sea of Korea, as the North Koreans called it.  
  
I overheard from the pearl fisher that the international community was having trouble deciding which name should be official, and that the governments of these three countries had some tension concerning this name.  
  
Stupid governments.  
  
All these thoughts floated through my mind as I desperately tried to get back to the surface, not caring if I didn't bring back any pearls, when Byung-eh sliced through the water like a tail-blade through air, grabbing my brick and helping me up. She led me to a relative distance from the raft, helping me catch my breath.  
  
She was amazing. I couldn't do that when I was three.  
  
I winced. I didn't want to think about what happened when I was three.  
  
Byung-eh handed me my brick, sliding the rope up my leg, so I could hold onto it without putting my face underwater. The weight pushed me downward, but Byung-eh said, "No," and showed me how to kick my legs to stay up. Then she disappeared, and after an infinite amount of time, brought up two handfuls of pearls, one of which she handed to me.  
  
I despaired of every learning how to be as skillful as these children were in pearl fishing.  
  
But after three months, I was pretty good.  
  
But what I loved the best about the short time that I spent with these children was the way they listened to me when I would gather them about me and tell them fantastic stories, stories about my life on the Andalite Home World, retelling old Andalite/Elemaki legends about the Ellimist, about the beginning of civilization, about anything that I could remember.  
  
Their eyes would grow wide, from Byung-eh, the youngest to Katapang, the boy who was only a few months younger than me.  
  
Ahs-gah, too, would lean against me, drinking in my words as I spoke and spoke and spoke.  
  
I don't know why I told these children my stories. Or any stories at all. I mean, I wasn't planning on staying here all my life.  
  
No, I had plans, I had ambition, and I had a vow to fill.  
  
Just no idea how to fill it.  
  
So meanwhile, I could protect the human race from each other by teaching these little ones to love each other.  
  
I found that bitterly ironic.  
  
Three months were spent this way.  
  
Three months of relative peace, until the lit fuse exploded, until the ticking bomb went off, until the rage was unleashed, until whatever Control I had was gone.  
  
No, that wasn't accurate. In fact, it probably was the Control that hindered me this time. If I had just finished the job...  
  
I remember I had told Eun-hee once, and Oba too, that I hated leaving something half-done, or even doing a job with just the half the effort. Just do it, or don't, I had said.  
  
I was most certainly a hypocrite.  
  
It started with Byung-eh. She was an enigmatic three-year-old, apparently having no life other than the one with the pearl fisher. Talkative, yet scared of normal things that a child would be afraid of.  
  
Like the dark waters.  
  
During the day time, she was fine. But at night...  
  
"None of you have brought enough pearls," Master stated bluntly. "All of you will go to fill your quota."  
  
We stood in a line, facing front. I looked over at the setting sun, then back at Master.  
  
No one said anything.  
  
"Go!" he shouted.  
  
We all scattered, and began to dive, expect for Byung-eh, who had not moved from her spot.  
  
I also paused, my hands stretched in front of me as stopped halfway through preparing to dive.  
  
"What do you want?" Master spat at her.  
  
"I can't go."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"It's dark."  
  
Laughing, he spat at her again. "Dark? Do you think I care about that?" Leaning closer, he said, "Go, or I'll make sure that you do all your diving in the dark."  
  
Stupid. We couldn't even see in the dark. What, did he expect us to blindly swipe at the ground and come up with handfuls of pearls?  
  
He must be drunk.  
  
With that thought, I looked at him carefully. Yes, there was that tilt of his chin, his swagger, his slurred speech, and his bright eyes.  
  
I knew that drunkenness caused periods of forgetfulness at times among humans, so maybe if he would drink himself to oblivion and forget about Byung-eh...  
  
No. He wasn't drunk enough.  
  
"Nunah," Ahs-gah said softly as he tugged at my ragged shirt. "We have to go or - " he pointed at Master with his chin.  
  
"Go ahead," I whispered. I wanted to be there in case he hurt Byung-eh.  
  
And what would you do? Launch yourself at him? Grab Byung-eh and swim to shore? Morph and kill him?  
  
Master looked straight at me. "You. Go."  
  
With a last glance at the trembling Byung-eh, I threw myself forward into the waters when CRACK! The sound of flesh striking flesh came to me.  
  
Instinctively I curled away from the sound, which distorted my dive so that I went crashing into the cold water.  
  
The sun's last rays were sinking over the horizon.  
  
I clambered back on board, my mind cleared, only one thing on it.  
  
Stop him.  
  
But your Control...  
  
Your vow...  
  
I heard Yacapin, the scarred Filipino boy gasp as he saw me hurtle through the air at Master, my hesitation from a moment before forgotten.  
  
Or almost forgotten.  
  
Master easily fended me off, even when drunk, and hit me. I ducked, and he missed, but he continued hitting me until I was leaning against the side of the boat, cowering, waiting for his blow.  
  
But it never came.  
  
Thirty seconds later I opened my eyes when I heard a scream and a splash.  
  
Master wasn't hanging over me. In fact, he wasn't any where near me.  
  
He was standing on the other side of the boat, brushing his hands in satisfaction.  
  
But Byung-eh was gone.  
  
I threw myself into the water, but Master was quicker than I had thought, and he grabbed me. "Oh, no, she'll drown, afraid of the dark indeed, she should be more afraid of me!"  
  
Desperately, I clawed at him. No, not again, not my fault, what was I thinking, oh never mind, I wasn't thinking I  
  
"Too much trouble," he leered. "Much too much trouble. I'm tired of trying to break you. I thought I had you when I killed your sister, but you just play quiet. Three months you fooled me. It never took me longer than a week."  
  
Yacapin was on board now, dripping wet, with scared eyes. Ahs-gah was next to him, also wet, both of them with pearls in their hands.  
  
"She'll drown," Master whispered in my ear. "I tied her up with ropes that had bricks attached to them. She'll drown."  
  
I struggled, but he was holding me down, intoxicated with his own power.  
  
"I'm going to sell the lot of you," he snapped. "All of you. I'm tired of this whole business." He shook me irritably, as if I had been the one who convinced to become a pearl fisher. "And I'll take the money I get from selling you and settle down somewhere."  
  
Somewhere where he could drink himself to death, no doubt.  
  
"I'm tying you up. And if you try to escape, someone else is going to join Byung-eh."  
  
Join Byung-eh. In the ocean. With everyone else.  
  
Why did the ocean keep taking my loved ones from me?  
  
Loved ones. That was the problem, wasn't it? That you loved them. If you didn't care, then it wouldn't matter. He couldn't use any of them against me, and I wouldn't care if he tried to.  
  
So no one is hurt.  
  
I looked at Ahs-gah, at Yacapin. At the other children that had found their way to the boat, some with pearls, and some without.  
  
Too late. I already loved them.  
  
But next time, I wouldn't make the same mistake.  
  
Love made you too vulnerable. Maybe in a stable place, maybe in a place where it wouldn't hurt to love...  
  
Don't be ridiculous, Mah-yah. There's death everywhere, even in stable places like the Andalite Home World, and it will always hurt to love. There is old age, sickness, and accidents. Death is a fact of life.  
  
That's what makes love so precious. So expensive. It may be cheap to get at first (a few kind words, an open heart), but it costs much too much to maintain. And when it is tested...  
  
Well, love is impossible to buy. And therefore priceless when tested.  
  
And I'm not rich.  
  
I remained tied up, for the next week. Master sold all the children off, sometimes two at a time, sometimes one.  
  
Until Ahs-gah and I were the only ones left and my Control leaked through.  
  
It had been leaking before, through the cracks and crevices of the dam that I had put up to control it. And now it found a hole, and it was steadily pouring through.  
  
The dam was strong enough to hold my rage back, as long as there were holes in it that could release it, slowly.  
  
To Ahs-gah.  
  
I hated myself for doing this too him, but my hate was too strong.  
  
"Ahs-gah," I whispered.  
  
He came over to me on silent feet and silent hands.  
  
"What?"  
  
I looked him over. He was a strong boy, five years old, with wide honest eyes that were actually not that normal for a Korean.  
  
"You know where Master keeps him razor blades?"  
  
He nodded, and understanding came to his eyes.  
  
"If you go first, I'll do it," I told him. "But if he sells me first..."  
  
He nodded again.  
  
I should have had Ahs-gah kill him then. But there was fifty-fifty chance that I would be sold last, and then Ahs-gah would have no blood on his hands – Master's blood would be on my hands which were stained with blood anyway.  
  
Maybe if Ahs-gah cut me loose...  
  
But it would take too much time, and the sun would rise any moment now.  
  
Which we all knew meant it was time to get up.  
  
Half an hour later as I watched Master and Ahs-gah sail away I knew I had made a mistake.  
  
I looked around at the men he had sold me too, and their tattooed faces and rippling muscles did nothing to lessen my fear.  
  
I was on another metal boat, this time with desperate young men that were afraid of nothing.  
  
Odd how that works out. Desperation causes you to lose fear.  
  
I had experienced that too often to marvel over it for too long.  
  
Instead, I marveled at the machine guns that these men carried, at the strength that these men possessed, and at the fear that they created.  
  
And I despaired, again, for the millionth time of ever winning my freedom and getting out alive.  
  
For Master had sold me to pirates.  
  
***************************Review Responses*****************************  
  
Sorry I haven't written in a while, and sorry that this is shorter. I hope to get the next chapter up tomorrow, and then maybe another Friday, but I can't promise the Friday one. After that I'm not going to be back until Monday, so review! And I'm sorry if this one seemed a little fast paced – this was one of the chapters that I hadn't planned in my mind, so I wanted to get it over with so I could write about the stuff that I like. It's a bad habit of mine, sorry!  
  
Naric – new reviewer yay! And it's ok if you're not a writer, I'm glad you like my stories though! And it's ok, you don't have to wait to review, you can review each chapter... subtle hints *wink* *nudge* Anyway, I'm really glad you like them, and thanks for your review!  
  
DH L'Orange – I was actually thinking about the kids, and how to deal with their number. I'm pretty bad at giving more than four kids a unique, good identity, without writing a novel, so I decided to just focus on like two, Ahs-gah and Byung-eh. This chapter was actually pretty bad, because I just didn't want to write it. It was like one of in between chapters that are necessary, but annoying to write. And now I can continue with Mah-yah!  
  
Sugaricing – another new reviewer! And wow, thanks. I read the reviews to the other chronicles, and frankly I was very impressed. I'm glad you like my writing, and please continue reviewing!  
  
Ali-Adi – Yeah, it was sad to kill Eun-hee, but you know, plot development, characterization, all that stuff. I'm sorry I made you cry!  
  
Custardpringle – Eww. Mah-yah and Oba are like Trent and me, and as adorable as that kid is, that's just gross. Besides, Oba is like twice as old as Mah-yah. And I have far grander plans for Mah-yah. Never mind, Oba is better than the guy I was planning. *grins*  
  
Hey – hi. Mleah.  
  
RandomPirate – Yeah, Eun-hee's death might have caused her to lose it anyway, but she just made the vow, and it was pretty strong. You know, all that "swear by the deathbed" kind of thing. Mah-yah's still a kid, so she's going to have to work on acting in the right place and time, not just reacting. I'm gonna have her grow. And about the Animorphs in California – cheese! If that makes no sense, go back to my Nadar Chronicles Part I. I explained there that all guesses would be answered by cheese, because if I tried to give hints to even part of it, I would end up spilling everything. And thanks for your review!  
  
Tabatha – I'm glad you thought the chapters had a lot of emotion. I was afraid that chapter nine wasn't as emotion filled at chapter eight, but either way. And you're right, about finding places of solitude to read and work. I always kick everyone out of my room and don't let anyone in when I want to be alone, but they keep coming anyway.  
  
Anonymous-cat – Yes, Mah-yah does need anger management lessons. I do teach her those, eventually. And I'm glad you thought this one was powerful – I was afraid it wasn't as much as chapter eight. Thanks for your review!  
  
Twilek- hanny, hanny, hanny, what am I going to do about you? And he sat next to you on the bus? Oooooooooooooooooh... 


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven:  
  
I lay trembling in the darkness, more afraid than I had ever been in my entire life.  
  
No, that wasn't true, I had been just as afraid before.  
  
But now there was no way out.  
  
Or...  
  
I could morph.  
  
I thought back to the human woman that had given me the morphing power.  
  
The ring that was hidden in my kafit bird morph.  
  
I hadn't looked at that ring in over three years.  
  
And tonight, I had this wild crazy desire to take it out and hold it aloft, to let the moon shine on its bluish metal.  
  
But I held my desire in.  
  
Eight years of never getting anything helps you with self-control.  
  
Noises, stumbling about, singing. These pirates were getting drunk.  
  
I thought back to the pearl fisher – how many years had it been? A million? – with Katapang, the oldest of the children. He had told me stories about Earth's oceans, in return for my stories about the Andalite Home World.  
  
About pirates.  
  
He had told me that he had learned in school before he was kidnapped that pirates used to be of legends, that they used to wear great flowing clothes and carry knives everywhere, and lived on great wooden boats and were in all the stories, robbing ships of good guys and looking for gold.  
  
And now they evolved with technology like the rest of the world had, and they had machine guns instead of knives, and a speedy metal boat with an engine instead of a great wooden boat, and they did rob other citizen's boats, and they looked for cash, and they wore typical "Western" clothes as I heard they were called.  
  
Albeit clothes that were torn and ripped, but clothes all the same.  
  
Except for when they got drunk.  
  
Here one comes.  
  
I felt myself steady myself, to remove my feelings from this world, and to watch, just watch, ready to act, but not to feel anything.  
  
I was seriously beginning to dislike this substance called alcohol, in whatever form it came in.  
  
Beer, being the most common. And the fancier ones of wine, vodka, and I didn't know any others.  
  
It seemed to exaggerate the personalities and characteristics of those it was imbibed by.  
  
I wondered briefly what kind of character traits would be exaggerated if I drank it, but the pirate was there, looming, a bottle in his hand.  
  
"Cuum heah," he drawled. Yeah, and I understood what that meant.  
  
His hands reached out for me while I darted away.  
  
I didn't know what he was going to do, but I didn't intend on finding out.  
  
Why didn't you morph while they were on the other side of the boat, Mah- yah? Instead of risking your life thinking stupid thoughts?  
  
Maybe the Andalites were right when they said thoughts could be dangerous.  
  
Or maybe I was forever thinking when I should be acting, and acting when I should be thinking.  
  
Like now.  
  
The pirate's hands grabbed out again, missing me as I danced aside once more.  
  
The man looked down at me in frustration, wobbling, when the moon slipped out from under a cloud and hit his face, lighting it up.  
  
It was the face of the pearl fisher.  
  
For a moment I panicked, and then realized that it had been my nerves, and the moon's distorted light that had turned the pirate's features into the more well known features of the pearl fisher.  
  
I never liked the moon.  
  
Besides, the pearl fisher is dead, I reminded myself. Ahs-gah killed him. He promised to, and he knows how to. Just slip that razor blade over "Master's" throat.  
  
And what would Ahs-gah do?  
  
Stupid, stupid, I cursed myself. Not thinking, again!  
  
Or just acting, wrong again!  
  
So do the right thing now.  
  
But every time I do something I look back and I should have done the other!  
  
So lay it out, simple. What are you doing now?  
  
Thinking.  
  
So act.  
  
But if I act, then later I will realize that I should have been thinking.  
  
So think and act, Mah-yah do something!  
  
"Do" entails an action.  
  
The next time the pirate's hand jumped out I grabbed it, causing the man to stumble, and fall flat on his face. I hesitated, a little surprised at how easy it had been.  
  
I looked at the hand that I was still holding, and saw a bracelet of teeth around it.  
  
Human teeth.  
  
Teeth taken out of his victim's head.  
  
Like the children's parents.  
  
This man deserved to die.  
  
I ignored the voice that said "but so do you!" and decided on a gun to kill him. That way it would bring up the other pirates and I could kill them as well.  
  
You deserve to die too.  
  
I carefully aimed at the passed out pirate on the deck, and pulled the trigger.  
  
Murdering hypocrite. Murderer murdering a murderer.  
  
As expected, the others rushed out, also drunk.  
  
What, are you the sole arbiter of justice?  
  
I shot them all.  
  
Only those that have done no wrong can judge!  
  
The last pirate flopped over a tank of gasoline, causing it to spill onto the metal floor.  
  
No matter. The ship is made of metal, not wood and if you go up in flames, it's no more than you deserve.  
  
The gasoline continued to spill as I turned the gun around so that the barrel was facing me.  
  
Good, good, just one shot, if you were truly fair, then you would rid yourself of the world.  
  
My finger was on the trigger...  
  
That's what Eun-hee said, right? Protect the world from people like you, from Nadar.  
  
But how can I protect the world if I'm not there?  
  
Fool, you are a menace to the world. Rid yourself and you will have protected it. How many more humans need to die by your hand?  
  
I pulled the trigger just as the gasoline ran by a lit cigarette and wooden buckets and exploded the metal ship, shooting me into the air, the bullet missing me by centimeters.  
  
I fell into the cold, cold water, the gun still in my hand.  
  
Instantly I released the gun, and watched as the rest of the boat went under, sucked into the voracious ocean, which, by now, had convinced me that it wanted to eat everything and everyone.  
  
But I wouldn't let it have me.  
  
Only I would kill myself, and I would not allow anyone else to do it.  
  
The practical me knew I was being ridiculous. The ocean is not a person, it said. No more than a gun is.  
  
But I was not practical, I was drowning, drowning in grief and anger and denial, I didn't want to be a murderer, but it was wrong wrong wrong wrong.  
  
So I fought the ocean, I claimed that I would not die except by my hand and my head broke through, I gasped the salty air, and then the ocean pushed me down again, tugged me under, but each time I pushed through.  
  
If I had been standing on the boat, I could have morphed to kafit bird and flown away.  
  
But I had no other bird morphs than that one, and I had no water morphs, period.  
  
Only my human self could struggle against the waves that seemed determined to bring me down to the depths of the sea, where pearls glistened and bodies sank, and  
  
I swallowed another mouthful of sea water.  
  
Where was I? I thought dazedly. In the Pacific? Did the pirates really take me that far?  
  
If I was there, then I was as good as dead.  
  
No, I would fight, I would fight and I would win.  
  
But the water was too cold, it was already numbing me and it was in July, the ocean would win, it would rob me of my breath and my heat and my life.  
  
If only the pirate's ship was made of wood! Then in the explosion I could find debris to cling to.  
  
But it was a metal ship, and metal sinks.  
  
Just like living humans, while dead ones floated.  
  
The ocean tore into me again, pushing me down. It was so dark, so dark, and I was alone, alone and about to die  
  
A cold something nudged me.  
  
If I had not been a Nadar, I would have shrieked and shoved it away.  
  
But I was a Nadar, and so I held myself still and I felt a rubbery skin rub against me, and the smiling face of a dolphin lifted itself out of the waves that were trying to strangle me.  
  
I clung to it, instinctively. Come with me, it seemed to be saying, its smiling face grave and happy at the same time. Come.  
  
So I came.  
  
The dolphin didn't fight the ocean like I had, instead, it floated, skimming on the top of the sea, as if the ocean was its friend and as if the ocean was going to help it on its quest.  
  
I didn't disagree. The ocean was too powerful for me to fight right now.  
  
The moon was still there, but it was a quarter moon, enough light to distort a man's features, but not enough to work by.  
  
But it was enough to live by.  
  
The dolphin stopped quickly, and I held my breath as it dove under, a dozen feet.  
  
Three months of fishing for pearls had expanded my lungs to the point that I could hold my breath for indefinite amounts of time.  
  
Like Byung-eh.  
  
Like I had thought I would never been able to.  
  
The dolphin stopped, and I could see what was happening. A mother, giving live birth to a calf.  
  
In July? But dolphins in the Pacific were supposed to give birth in the fall.  
  
At least that was what Oba had said.  
  
And there was a problem, the mother was dying, she could let the baby free to breathe on its own, and they needed  
  
Needed human hands.  
  
I would have laughed if it wouldn't have caused me to choke on sea water.  
  
Needed human hands that I had borrowed from Eun-hee, human hands that had just killed other humans, human hands that only seemed capable of killing.  
  
And they wanted my hands to help give life?  
  
Oh, might as well. My whole life has been nothing but bitter irony anyway.  
  
I pushed, I pulled, I prodded, and slowly, slowly, the baby slid out another inch. But by then, I needed another breath and so one of the dolphins rose with me as I broke through the waves.  
  
I took another huge gulp of air, and slipped into the murky waters again.  
  
I was doing this almost all by feel, because very little moon showed twelve feet under the surface of the ocean.  
  
The same ocean that had taken life, was now giving it.  
  
Maybe the ocean isn't that far from a human.  
  
Don't think now, Mah-yah. Act.  
  
Inch by inch, I pulled, gently, firmly, and the mother, who was bleeding very heavily by now, rolled over. The "auntie" dolphin came and turned her over, while the others kept their distance, still keeping a lookout for sharks that would be attracted by the blood.  
  
Finally. Three breaths of air later, the baby was out, and the dolphins rose again, guiding the baby to the surface to take his first breath of air.  
  
The mother came, slowly, her body weakening, as she thrust through the water. Without thinking I placed my hands on her slippery body, intending to help her up, when she turned to me.  
  
I will die, she was saying. Take my body and care for my child.  
  
This was too much. This wasn't in the realm of thinking. Or in the realm of acting, for that matter.  
  
Take my body and care for my child.  
  
How did she know that I could do this?  
  
Maybe I was reading too much into it. Maybe she was just smiling at me like dolphins do, and in my desperation I was searching for a reason to keep living, to not have to end my life like I deserved.  
  
Take my body and care for my child.  
  
I could always die later.  
  
I closed my eyes and acquired her, and then morphed her, my sodden rags suddenly sticking to my body as it changed to the sleek body of a dolphin that thought of the ocean as its friend.  
  
The mother's eyes clouded over as she fell backwards in death, and I could sense the dolphins, grieving for her death, yet celebrating for the new birth.  
  
And I stood in the middle, between life and death, not knowing which way to turn.  
  
Take my body and care for my child.  
  
With a powerful snap of my new tail, I shot upwards.  
  
I chose life.  
  
*****************************Review Responses***************************  
  
Ok, this one is up, really soon. And no one had time to review between the two except for Anonymous-cat! Applause, and a special prize goes to her! Now, please review both Chapter 10, and 11, just as a thank you for getting this one up so quickly, even if you read both back to back. That would be very much appreciated. Thanks!  
  
Anonymous-cat – Yup, Mah-yah is going to struggle a lot with love. I'm kind of playing on the theme of love is dangerous, so she decides not to love, but each time she realizes that it is impossible not to love. And about the razor blades, I explained it in this chapter. And thank you for your review! 


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve:  
  
There was so much life.  
  
Stingrays and seals and whales and turtles and sharks.  
  
And dolphins.  
  
We swam quietly at the bottom of the sea, my eyes adjusting to every new sight. Even on the surface of North Korea I had been amazed at the abundance of life that Earth had to offer.  
  
And here, under the sea, there was so much more, untouched by sentience.  
  
Even the water itself seemed beautiful. I had never moved so gracefully, without effort, on four legs, or two. Everything was so different, for one thing. I mean, I had lived on Earth for just a little more than three years, but it still continued to amaze me.  
  
A turtle passed me, with black and green fish eating off of it. Blue whales swam overhead; their sonorous voices the only lullabies I ever knew.  
  
And my precious dolphins. My family.  
  
It was kind of sad, really. My only living family that I was genetically a part of and they weren't even sentient.  
  
I like dumb animals better than I like smart sentients.  
  
And my baby boy.  
  
I had named him Beloved Son.  
  
Simple, I know, but it fit.  
  
This was the most peaceful time of my life, swimming gently, leaping up over the waters to play, showing my adopted son how to catch fish and eat them, and just living, living, in a world where death was present but not feared, and where life was full of love.  
  
If only sentients could live like this.  
  
Half the time I was convinced that the dolphins were sentient, actually. From the messenger dolphin who found me drowning in the waves to the mother who asked me to raise her son, to my son himself.  
  
And then there was the Old One.  
  
I called him Old One, like I called my son Beloved Son, like I called my sister Kind Sister. Simple names that described who they were.  
  
And the Old One was old.  
  
Old and wise. Isn't that how it goes?  
  
I read a poem once, I forget where, that went something like this.  
  
There were two crows.  
  
One was an old, slow old crow, and the other was a young fast one.  
  
The young fast crow would fly in circles around the slow old crow.  
  
What did the slow old crow not know?  
  
How to go faster.  
  
What did the young fast crow not know?  
  
Where to go.  
  
Of course, I butchered the beginning part, but memory is tricky, and the only part that really stood out was the last part anyway.  
  
The young crow did not know where to go.  
  
And I was young, I had a nine year old body, or would have one if I morphed back to human. I was a mature dolphin in this morph, and Beloved Son was almost to maturity too, after a year with me.  
  
One solid year with the dolphins.  
  
That was longer than the time I had spent with any human except for Eun- hee.  
  
Let me see, from age five to seven with Eun-hee, and then a few months with Eun-hee and Oba, and then another few months with the pearl fisher's children, and then a week with the pirates.  
  
And a year with the dolphins.  
  
But I digress. The Old One, yes, was in fact old, but his age and wisdom fascinated me, and often times he seemed to speak to me.  
  
Again, I was never sure if it was my own mind that made up his conversations, but if that was true, then my mind surprised me many times.  
  
Like today. I think I had decided to spend the rest of my life with the dolphins, fighting only when we needed to defend myself, when the Old One came.  
  
My Daughter, he called me. Yes, that was my name. My Daughter, for I was the daughter of the whole pod, even though I was a mother as well.  
  
Old One, I responded. Unlike humans our communication didn't require that we swim next to each other and look each other in the eye. I continued swimming where I was, waiting for the Old One's next words.  
  
It is time for you to return.  
  
His words hit me, and the fragile shell of peace and contentment that had been built up by my life the past year trembled under the blow.  
  
Why? Why must I leave?  
  
It is time for you to return to your People.  
  
Your people. His words hit my shell again, and this time it cracked slightly.  
  
Aren't I one of your People as well, Old One?  
  
My Daughter, you are of the sea people, and you will always be of the sea People. But you are also of the earth People and you are also of the star People. Who will you claim as your true People?  
  
A flashback of a human girl shooting a gun at a baby, and then at an eight year old.  
  
"I was a 1st generation Nadar" echoed back to me.  
  
But that made no sense! The Nadar weren't a People!  
  
No, no, the Old One soothed. The Nadar aren't a People.  
  
Then what do you mean?  
  
But there are Nadar. Among the earth People. Among the star People. Even among the sea People, although there are none in this pod.  
  
I waited.  
  
When we sent Fast Tail to get you, we sent him to collect someone who looked like one of the earth People, but would have the mind of the star People, the emotions of the sea People, and the heart of the Nadar.  
  
I noticed that he didn't include the Nadar as having a People.  
  
The Nadar are crying out, he continued. The way you cried out in your heart when you thought you were dying in the ocean before Fast Tail found you.  
  
It clicked.  
  
Fast Tail was sent to collect me when I was crying out.  
  
And I would be sent to collect Nadar that were also crying out.  
  
My old half forgotten plans of a Nadar government leapt to the surface. A warrior ruling over the Nadar, who protected the freedom of the civilians, or Kyan, as they were called.  
  
But first...  
  
More clearly in my mind was a picture of another little human girl, who had been the exact same genetic makeup as me. Who had enough perseverance to keep living, and enough courage to love.  
  
And enough vision to love the world, and enough intelligence to see that I would love the world for her sake.  
  
I still had a vow to fill.  
  
This time I looked up at the Old One.  
  
Rise to the surface, My Daughter.  
  
I sang, and the Old One sang with me, and the pod began singing too, as we all rose, Beloved Son rising next to me.  
  
We broke the surface of the water.  
  
Now we go.  
  
The Old One's command threw us all into action as we leapt forward, jumping, laughing, playing, yet still moving forward towards rising sun.  
  
When the sun was high in the sky, we stopped at the sight of land.  
  
America.  
  
It had been so long since Eun-hee had first told me that we should go to America.  
  
America, the land of freedom.  
  
I looked at my family, and dove, singing of the joy that new beginnings bring, but of the sorrow of endings that come before the beginnings.  
  
They dove with me, and we intermingled, touching noses, fins, tails, sides until we were a single unit, a single People, and I knew then that the Old One was right, that I was much more than a half-breed, I was a mixture of everyone I had ever met, and even if there was sorrow to come, I needed that sorrow to grow so that I could fulfill my vow, and then move on to create a new People.  
  
It is time to return, My Daughter.  
  
I rose to twelve feet under the surface, and demorphed for the first time in a year to my human form with my still wet rags. I held my breath as my People rose under me and brought me to the surface of the water, where I could see America in the horizon.  
  
Human hands. Human feet. Human fingers.  
  
All so new, all so bewildering, but still they were mine, and I would use them for good.  
  
Or so I hoped.  
  
No, I couldn't promise to use them for good. But I could promise to use them to protect.  
  
I had vowed that already.  
  
Dance, My Daughter.  
  
I rose on my human legs, unsteadily, as my family – my People – created a raft around me.  
  
And I danced.  
  
On human legs.  
  
I spun, I leapt, I turned circles, I rolled, I dived, I snapped out again, I reveled in life, in new beginnings, in old endings, I danced.  
  
And when I plunged into the water, Beloved Son rose under me and he swam, he spun in the air and leapt with me on him, and then I felt joy in my human self, as one of the earth People, and I knew, if I could find the same joy as a Nadar, then I would be ready to make them a People.  
  
For there isn't a People without sorrows shared, and the Nadar had plenty of those.  
  
But there also isn't a People that don't have joys to share, and that was what I would need to find.  
  
But not yet.  
  
Now I could lose myself in the dance, in the joy, in the wild celebration, celebrating – I didn't know! – just living.  
  
And I thought, maybe, maybe life itself is worth living, just for life's sake.  
  
Even as I thought that I rejected it, because I knew that it was the dolphins had made my life worth living for the past year, and the children before then, and Oba before that and Eun-hee before that, and my brother before that, and my mother before that.  
  
Again, what is the meaning of life, but it didn't matter, not now, when there is so much joy – maybe that – but this time I didn't need to know because I was living a life of meaning, while before I had always been in despair, and now, if there was love there was life, if there was hope there was life.  
  
And the sun rose higher and traveled west while we sped to the shoreline.  
  
The dolphins swam as far as they could into the shallows, Beloved Son carrying me through the glistening waves.  
  
Then finally, Beloved Son shot into the air, me clinging onto his sleek body, and at the highest arch I let go and dove forward while Beloved Son leapt away into the ocean home where he was born.  
  
I staggered up the slope, my rags not fitting my nine-year-old body very well.  
  
(But why care?)  
  
I turned, put my hand over my eyes to shade them from the sun, and thought, I love you, my People, my family, Fast Tail, Kind Sister, Beloved Son, Old One.  
  
I heard the songs of their goodbyes and knew, without a shade of doubt, that I would see them once more.  
  
I just didn't know when.  
  
I then turned to face this new land that I had stepped foot on, and I was afraid.  
  
For the first time since I lived on Earth I was alone.  
  
Well, it was time for me to grow up. I had been alone on the Andalite Home World for a while, hadn't I?  
  
Until Solethi found me.  
  
Ah, Solethi, would you fear me now? I am the dreaded first generation Nadar, and you are the third gen.  
  
This was annoying. I hadn't had thoughts like this while I was a dolphin.  
  
I hadn't cared then that I was a first gen Nadar.  
  
But now I did.  
  
I left the sandy beaches and made my way to what looked like a large village, with metal buildings all stuck together.  
  
A city. Or at least that was the way Oba had described it.  
  
Walking, walking, looking, smelling, hearing.  
  
My bare feet moved quietly among the noise and the cars and the pedestrians of this city. Many glanced at me oddly, and I didn't realize what was wrong until I noticed that their clothes were much better fitting and cleaner than mine.  
  
Not to mention dry.  
  
I ignored them and continued to walk straight forward, to the heart of the city. I don't really know why, but some innate sense of direction led me onward, towards the center of this enlarged village.  
  
Solethi had talked to me about Nadar instinct.  
  
Nadar instinct. A "gut" feeling, per say, or just a simple knowledge that it is completely necessary to do something. A sixth sense.  
  
But meanwhile I couldn't stop looking.  
  
There was so much life! So much screaming, shouting, vendors selling their wares, more cars that I had ever seen in my life, and just so much... stuff.  
  
I walked quietly, yes, but it took a lot of self-control to not just stop and gape and everything.  
  
And no one looked hungry.  
  
If the people in North Korea knew about this kind of lifestyle... I couldn't even dream of what would happen.  
  
That sixth sense led to me to a less populated area, where buildings rose on every side of me, and dirt and filth and people dressed like me were walking.  
  
At least I fit in now.  
  
They still didn't look hungry, though, and my gaunt cheeks and thin frame still drew some looks.  
  
I turned another corner, and saw a relatively familiar sight. Two older boys, hitting and kicking a younger one who was lying on the ground, crying.  
  
I watched placidly until I realized what was wrong.  
  
This was America. Not North Korea.  
  
And this kind of thing wasn't supposed to happen in America.  
  
I felt the now familiar surge of rage, and tried to quell it when I remembered my vow to save humans from each other.  
  
I could start with that, since there weren't any aliens about to save Earth from and the only Nadar in the vicinity I knew of was me.  
  
I stepped out boldly, and almost smiled at the difference between me the Nadar and me the Kyan.  
  
The older boys ignored me, continuing to taunt the other one.  
  
This time, I kept my rage completely under control, as I morphed to an Elemaki.  
  
Except it didn't work.  
  
I panicked for a moment, and then remembered. Duh! I hadn't been a human for two hours yet; the dolphin was still my base morph.  
  
So what was I going to do, just sit here until I could morph to something deadly?  
  
Yeah right.  
  
Humans died on sharp things, remember?  
  
I looked in the filth around me, and sure enough, I found the broken shards of a bottle.  
  
I grimly remembered my first encounter with a bottle.  
  
Picking one up, I snuck around to the back, careful to seem unobtrusive. Then slowly, carefully, I snuck up behind one of them and shot my arms around his waist, trying to clamber up to his throat.  
  
The boy threw me back with such force that I cracked my head on the ground, and lay dazed as he loomed over me.  
  
Jenjang, I was in trouble.  
  
****************************Review Responses****************************  
  
Ok, I'm back! I was away over Easter Break, but I brought the laptop to type the next chapter up on, and it's an extra long one! And a note, jenjang is a Korean expression, which is something, like, oh shoot, they're going to kill me, or something like that. And look, it's a cliffie! I think I wrote a total one other cliffie in all my previous chronicles put together – I generally like to finish chapters, but this one was getting too long, and this is a good ending anyway. And also, just a question, I have more reviews on Nadar Chronicles Part I then this one. Is that one better, or am I just updating faster on this one? Anyway, enough babbling, to your review responses!  
  
Custardpringle – well, we've been corresponding by email, so, I pretty much answered your review already. And a whole bunch of other things. Mleah. I don't want to go back to school Tuesday. I still haven't finished all my hwork.  
  
Anonymous-cat – sorry, I meant that she was thinking about 8 yrs of her life in total. I cleared that up in this chapter with the remembering back part – I do that a lot. And this chapter should answer a lot of stuff too. And thanks for the consistent reviews! Everyone else seems to be gone. *sniff* I just feel slightly worried because Chronicles I has more reviews than this one, but this one has more chapters. Oh well.  
  
Twilek – kind of, yeah, she is taking the dolphin's body to continue the work, but I'm not sure how that is a communion. ?? No, it's good insight, though.  
  
Tabatha – Yay! I'm glad you like the dolphins. I've always liked them, too, which is why she's spending a year with them even though I have a lot of plans for her and not that much time for her to do them. And I think your reviews are fine. They give me a lot to respond back to, which is something that others don't do all the time. And about the Andalites? Well, I'll have to say cheese. Oh, fine, they are coming back. Eventually. And I just noticed something. You didn't review Chapter 10! Nooooooo... Pretty please? I asked, in chapter 11, to review both b/c I updated quickly. And I updated this one fast too!  
  
PLEASE REVIEW THE PREVIOUS CHAPTERS TOO! I UPDATE FAST FOR YOU, SO PRETTY PLEASE? 


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13:  
  
I lay flat on my back, trying to breathe through my bruised and aching ribs. I'll think twice before I attack someone twice my height, I thought wryly.  
  
Only when I struggled up to look into the adoring eyes of the little boy that I had been beaten up for, I knew that I wouldn't think again, I would throw myself onto whoever the attacker was.  
  
Or actually, I would think twice, but it wouldn't affect my actions.  
  
So there really was no point to thinking, was there?  
  
"What's your name?" I rasped out. My throat hurt. Probably from getting punched in it.  
  
Yeah, probably!  
  
Shut up.  
  
The boy looked puzzled. "What?"  
  
Oh yeah, translating chip. I switched to English and asked him the same question.  
  
He shrugged. "Don't got one." This time the translating chip picked it up.  
  
I stared at him, remembering Ahs-gah. How many more little nameless boys was I going to run into?  
  
I cleared my throat. Man, the sand and dirt must have gotten into my throat.  
  
Sand. Dirt. The little boy was pretty dirty too, after having his face rubbed into the ground, but I doubt he wanted to be called Dirty.  
  
So Sandy, then.  
  
"I'll call you Sandy," I declared, then went into spasmodic coughing. Stupid throat.  
  
He looked at me. "You want me?"  
  
I stared back. What kind of question was that? "I named you, didn't I?"  
  
His face broke into smile. "I'll follow you, then. Me. Sandy."  
  
I grinned at him. "C'mon, let's go."  
  
We both got up stiffly, and on an impulse I reached out and tousled his hair.  
  
I knew the desperate feeling of being wanted, too.  
  
We wandered through the streets, Sandy slowly telling me about his life. He had lived in the streets for as long as he could remember which wasn't very far back. He didn't know how old he was, but I told him that he looked around four, and he accepted it readily enough.  
  
The wail of a baby interrupted Sandy, and my mind instantly connected it with the cries of the infants that the soldiers had killed.  
  
I grabbed Sandy's arm. "Do they..."  
  
I swallowed, and continued. "Do they kill babies here, too?"  
  
Sandy seemed indifferent. "Kill them? Nah. They usually die on their own, cos their parents leave 'em. Like me, only I'm not dead."  
  
I nodded, then asked, "Who was that, then, that cry?"  
  
Sandy shrugged. "Probably some whore's brat."  
  
For a moment I was speechless. That this boy could be so callous... I mean, I had seen the desperation in life now, and it could drive people to desperate things. It still didn't make it any less wrong, but the reasons made those that committed such acts more human.  
  
Even though being human didn't necessarily mean that you could count on being treated well, or even being treated as a human should be treated.  
  
Like all sentients should be treated.  
  
Hah. As if that would ever happen. I had seen the way humans and Andalites had treated their own species. Aliens would never live together in peace if they couldn't live in harmony with their own, first.  
  
I tugged on Sandy's arm, and we turned towards the sound.  
  
I couldn't help but remember the countless babies that had been murdered, aborted, left to starve, or worse, eaten in famine.  
  
Besides, I thought grimly, I had a habit of attracting kids only to get them killed.  
  
I turned the corner to see the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, just as beautiful as Kyrani had been, but in a strange, fascinating, alien way.  
  
Well, she was an alien.  
  
Even though I was supposed to be of her species.  
  
So the old question, does DNA matter, or does mind matter?  
  
Funny, now that I actually thought about it, I now identified myself as a Nadar, not a human or an Elemaki.  
  
The girl had beautiful flowing curls, with hair that would have been red as the blood of humans if it hadn't been dirty and smeared. Her eyes were shockingly green, but were dulled by the tears in her eyes.  
  
On her hip was a baby, the one who had been screaming the entire time, and holding her hand was a boy who looked exactly like her, just younger and with shorter, but just as curly, red hair.  
  
We stared at each other, both fascinated by the other, when the girl broke in.  
  
"They'll get you later; they'll get anything that walks on two legs."  
  
I started, and then said, "What?"  
  
She looked at me for a moment, and then whispered, "You're so lucky that you're not pretty."  
  
Waves of feelings flowed over me, but I let none of my emotions show. Plain? Yes, I was plain. I was nothing like this American girl.  
  
And a feeling of envy at her beauty washed over me, something I had never felt before.  
  
But I wasn't the one holding a baby, crying, in the middle of the street because I couldn't feed her or myself or my little brother.  
  
And I remembered Eun-hee, and how she accepted me without question, and so I stepped forward and encircled this beautiful hurting goddess with my arms.  
  
She returned my embrace, and whispered, "I'm sorry for being mean, I was just jealous," in my ear.  
  
I stepped back and asked her, "Why?"  
  
The girl smiled painfully. "To be beautiful on the streets is a death wish. And I've been wishing for death since I was ten."  
  
So this girl was older than ten.  
  
"What's your name?" I asked. "And how old are you?"  
  
"My name is Anna," she said softly, "and this," she pulled up her brother's hand, "is Andrew. I just call him Drew, though. And I'm twelve, he's eight, and the baby was born a month ago."  
  
"No name for the baby?" I teased, but Anna didn't smile.  
  
"Until I can forgive her father, no."  
  
Her tone matched Kyrani's exactly.  
  
"Why didn't you just get an abortion?" I asked.  
  
Anna looked at me scornfully. "You know how much an abortion costs? And besides," she hesitated, "I couldn't. Wouldn't. It felt wrong."  
  
I nodded, understanding, and then said, "So give her a name."  
  
Anna shook her head. "Later. Tell me what your name is now."  
  
"Mah-yah."  
  
"Mai-yah?" she tried out. "Why do you pronounce it so weird? It's supposed to be Maya."  
  
"Maya," I tried out. It worked.  
  
"How old are you?" she asked.  
  
How old was I? Let's see, um, eight when I landed on Earth, but no, I became five then, so did I give this girl my biological age, or how many years I had actually lived, totally? And then would I count the twenty-five years I had jumped, or what?  
  
"It's ok, if you don't know. Not many kids do."  
  
"No," I shook my head. "I'm nine."  
  
She nodded, and then said, "Can we come with you?"  
  
Come with me where? "What?"  
  
"Wherever you're going."  
  
"Why?"  
  
This time, her eight-year-old brother Drew spoke up. "You look tough."  
  
I grimaced, not wanting to tell this boy the truth. Or any of them, really.  
  
"Sure, I guess. I mean, I'm not going to be doing anything but trying to survive."  
  
Anna grinned. "That's fine with me. We can survive together."  
  
Together. Like Oba and Eun-hee and I.  
  
A family.  
  
"A family?" I asked.  
  
All of them, at the same time, looked up at me, and their eyes gleamed.  
  
I never saw anyone so hungry to be loved before.  
  
I only hoped that this family wouldn't die like my previous one had.  
  
And so we continued walking, with Sandy still at my one side, and Drew and Anna close by.  
  
Anna was still holding the baby.  
  
The next girl we picked up was six years old, and was scrounging through some garbage for something to eat. Anna called to her.  
  
She came, obviously entranced by her beauty, but more entranced by the possibility of us giving her some food.  
  
I explained to her that we were going to be family, and at first she laughed, saying that we didn't have a daddy.  
  
I smiled. "But I've never had a daddy in my entire life, and I still had a family."  
  
The girl, whose name was Katherine, replied, "But you're a kid, too."  
  
I smiled in return, knowing that her heart was already won.  
  
We continued picking up children until we had about twelve children all milling around.  
  
And then I heard his voice.  
  
Broken English, with a strong Korean accent- but there was sharpness in it that I wasn't familiar with.  
  
But it was still Ahs-gah.  
  
I turned, and my entire family turned with me, and I ran, and they all ran with me.  
  
And I ran to Ahs-gah, ran to him and picked him up with my arms, and yes it was him, dirtier, thinner, a little older, but still him, and when he saw it was me he jumped on me, and hugged me and whispered -  
  
"I killed him, just like you told me too."  
  
And because I couldn't bear to see him disappointed, I praised him.  
  
"After I slit his throat I was floating around in the sea for a while and then a cruise ship picked me up. No one knew what to do with me, so they just took me on with them. They were going back to America, and I remembered what you said, and so I kept quiet until I could see the shore and then I slipped over and swam here."  
  
Then he leaned forward confidentially, and said, "They had so much food on the ship."  
  
I lifted my eyebrows in disbelief. "So you mean America isn't like this? It isn't full of starving children that speak English instead of Korean?"  
  
He shook his head. "There is a rich part of America, where no one goes hungry, and everyone is happy."  
  
So that was what Eun-hee had heard about. The rich part of America, the land of freedom.  
  
"So we're free to starve, while in North Korea we were just forced to."  
  
No one got it.  
  
Well, that's what you get for being an alien genius. No one gets your ironic little jokes. Boo hoo, go home and cry.  
  
Except I don't have a home.  
  
Good point.  
  
So look for one.  
  
We found one.  
  
A seedy little place among some dumpsters, where we could get easy food, and clothes and boxes to sleep in.  
  
At least in America there was food to steal, while in North Korea there just wasn't any food.  
  
And it was out of the wind.  
  
It was late by then, and so we had all the children go to bed. Some remembered their parents telling them bedtime stories, and singing songs, so I told them a story, a funny one that Eun-hee had told me about two brothers in North Korea, one good and one bad, who learned to be kind because the good brother helped him. And Anna sang them a lullaby, and they were content.  
  
After they had all fallen asleep, Anna and I stayed up and talked.  
  
Or actually, Anna talked, and I soaked in as much information as I could about America.  
  
She told me everything that a ten-year-old would learn from school, and then everything she learned on the streets in those two years she spent there. She told me about reading, writing, and promised to teach me and the children. She talked about where to get food, where to beg, to steal, places to avoid, and more. She told me that we were in California, one of the 50 states of America, and she talked about the world as much as she knew about it, and slowly, dimly, I began to get a glimpse of what America was, of what Earth was, and it was very different from what I had been used to.  
  
And then she began to talk to me about her life, before.  
  
"My mother lived with her boyfriend until I was nine. And then he left her with us."  
  
Anna's brow deepened as she spoke, remembering. I waited, willing her to go on.  
  
"What was she supposed to do? She had two kids, no income, and an apartment that we needed to pay the rent of. We managed for a year, and then we lost the apartment."  
  
Another pause, as one more human opened their soul to me. Another soul for me to bear.  
  
"My mother was not a whore," she stated firmly.  
  
I didn't deny it.  
  
"And she loved us, too. She left us in the park, and told us she'd be back."  
  
And I knew the end of the story.  
  
"She never came back. I think someone killed her, because she would have never left us. I mean, she spent a year in the apartment with us, if she didn't love us she would have left earlier, right?"  
  
I listened to her, at her hesitant voice, at her sadness behind her words. She knew the truth, but in order to have reason to live, she was denying it.  
  
"What was your mother's name?" I asked gently.  
  
"Same as mine," was her reply.  
  
Anna.  
  
I looked at the sleeping baby, and all the kids who were gently snoring, at the children who had put their trust in me.  
  
I had never given birth, and I was still getting a lot of experience in motherhood.  
  
"So name the baby after her, and you, so she can live on."  
  
Anna's eyes filled with tears. "The baby, oh sometimes I wanted to dash her head on the rocks and watch her die."  
  
I continued to listen.  
  
"I'm only twelve! I'm not supposed to get pregnant and have a baby!"  
  
I broke in gently. "A lot of things aren't supposed to happen. We aren't supposed to go hungry, or get hurt, or a lot of things. But they do, and we have to deal with it."  
  
Anna nodded, wiping away her tears. "I'll name her."  
  
She then looked at me gratefully. "Thank you Maya."  
  
I smiled, and then helped her to bed, so that in the morning she could wake up and be the strong mother that they all needed.  
  
My mother too. We took turns.  
  
I only wished that I could be deserving of her gratitude, of the love that these children bestowed on me.  
  
For I was a murderer, and I knew that I would live with that forever.  
  
Oh, America, when you said, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" did you know that your huddled masses would stay poor, and would only be free to starve and die?  
  
******************************Review Responses************************** No notes, just review. Oh yes, I started an account on fictionpress and if you want to check it out, go ahead.  
  
Hell-Flame-Narf – Nadar isn't a species change, it's more of a personality change, so she can remain an Elemaki and be a Nadar at the same time. And thanks for the fics, I look into them!  
  
Hey – yay  
  
Anonymous-cat – about the human morphs, that was her original DNA. I know it's confusing, but I made up my own rules about morphing when KA didn't specify. DNA fixes wounds, but she was already gaunt, so she would remain so. Kind of like how Tobias had to morph to hawk to eat Rachel's burger, then he morphed to human to enjoy it. He still had to eat it as a hawk or he'd starve. Thanks for the review! And I fixed the review thing in Creator's Children – thanks for telling me!  
  
Ali-Adi – Thanks! I'm really glad you like it, and that you think I'm improving.  
  
Custardpringle – hey!  
  
Tabatha – yeah, there in CA now. *grins* You knew she was going to end up there somehow! And I hope your head feels better! That must have hurt!  
  
Sorry I have short reviews – I have about five minutes to write them. See ya next chapter! 


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14:  
  
The next day we had the kids sit tight and scrounge through the garbage dumps for anything before the trucks came to empty them.  
  
And Anna took me to a bookstore.  
  
It was so... new. Everything. The walls, the stairs, the books.  
  
There was nothing like this in North Korea.  
  
Anna led me to a slightly enclosed section that she called a children's section, and then eagerly reached out and picked a book.  
  
"I love coming here," she told me, her eyes shining. "It helps me forget, you know."  
  
I nodded, and then pulled a random book out. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  
  
It'll probably teach me more about Earth, I decided, and settled down to read it.  
  
An hour later I put it away, thinking. Well, I didn't learn very much on how to survive, but I did learn a lot about the world.  
  
I crawled over to Anna, who was still happily reading.  
  
"Are there witches and wizards in America, too?"  
  
She looked up, startled. "What are you talking about?"  
  
"That Harry Potter book."  
  
Her face broke into a smile. "Oh, that's not real. It's fiction."  
  
I stared for a moment, my mind processing this. "It's not real? None of that happened?"  
  
Anna shook her head. "Of course not. It's made up."  
  
"Why in the world would anyone in the world waste their time writing stuff they made in their heads?"  
  
Anna grinned again. "So other people could read it, and enjoy their brief escape from this world."  
  
"But why would they care?"  
  
She looked at me oddly. "Same reason you care about the kids. They love it."  
  
I shook my head, denying it. "I'm not going to love them. Then, if I lose them, or they lose me, no one gets hurt."  
  
Anna shrugged. "Sounds like you've already decided to love them."  
  
I started to reply when the shadow of an adult fell over me.  
  
I almost cowered, but I saw Anna was clearly not caring about this adult, so contained myself.  
  
"Hey, where are your parents?" the woman asked.  
  
Anna looked up. "They should be around here somewhere. They probably went downstairs or something."  
  
The lady nodded, and then turned to me. "What about you?"  
  
Before I could answer, Anna jumped in. "Oh, she's my friend."  
  
The woman nodded, noted my rags with puzzled eyes compared to Anna's better though still worn clothes. "Well, you girls have fun."  
  
"Thanks," Anna called out, as the employee walked away.  
  
I stared.  
  
"What?" Anna said defensively. "They would call the cops if they knew we didn't have parents, and then we'd be separated from the kids."  
  
Ok, that made sense. But... "Do you do this often?"  
  
She nodded. "Yeah, all the time."  
  
I shrugged. Fine with me.  
  
Except it wasn't.  
  
Ignoring that nagging feeling, I asked Anna for a book that taught about the real world.  
  
So I sat down and read the world almanac for the next three hours.  
  
My head was swollen with information by the time we walked out four hours later.  
  
Anna chattered on. "So, did you like it? I love going there. It's big enough so people ask where our parents are only like three times a year. I usually take Drew with me, but he doesn't like to read as much. He was just starting to learn when we left school." She paused for a breath, and then plunged ahead. "So, you read Harry Potter? You sure read fast. You finished it really quick. And I thought you didn't know how to read."  
  
I shrugged. "I guess I do. I thought I wouldn't but my translating chip must be more advanced than I thought."  
  
"What translating chip?"  
  
I explained about the genetic translating chip that every Andalite/Elemaki was born with, and she seemed fascinated enough.  
  
"It sounds like magic," she confessed. "Or at least science fiction. Is there anything like that in Harry Potter? I don't think so, but I don't really remember. I read it a while ago."  
  
I assured her that there wasn't, and she nodded and continued. "I don't much the Harry Potter books. I know everyone is crazy about them, but they aren't that great. I mean, Harry Potter always wins at the end of each book, and he always fights Voldemort, and there is always a huge plot twist in, like, the last three pages. I mean, it's ok, I just don't think that they're all that good."  
  
I smiled a little at her near-breathless dissertation. Honestly, I really didn't care whether Harry Potter was a "good book" or not.  
  
I had a mission, and anything that wouldn't help it would be disregarded.  
  
But it was obvious that Anna was starving for a friend to talk to, so I could take a little detour.  
  
"Let's take the kids to the beach to clean up," Anna suggested.  
  
I nodded, and we ran along the streets back to the camp.  
  
When we got back, the six-year-old Katherine was holding a three-year-old boy by his collar and beating him with her other fist.  
  
"Stop it!" I screamed. One of my children, beating another child?  
  
Katherine stopped with one hand in the air, and at that moment Ahs-gah (or Oscar, as he insisted was the American version of his name) struggled out of Drew's hold.  
  
I reached Katherine, and pried the boy from her grasp. Keeping my voice as steady as possible, I asked, "What happened?"  
  
Ahs, no Oscar, started to speak, but Drew spoke over him. "He's a thief. He came and tried to steal our stuff."  
  
Yes, let's cling to our precious garbage.  
  
How do I explain to these children that we are all thieves, that whatever we live on is stolen?  
  
How do I explain to them that I am worse than any thief?  
  
How do I explain that it is plain, outright wrong to hit a three-year-old for trying to survive?  
  
And who am I to tell anyone the difference between right and wrong?  
  
Just tell them. And pretend that you actually do follow them.  
  
Yeah, just be the biggest hypocrite you know.  
  
I started with the first question.  
  
"First, we all live on stuff that isn't ours. He's not a thief any more than we are."  
  
Drew broke in loudly with, "That's not true!"  
  
Anna, who had been silent up until then turned on him fiercely. "And what would you know? Every scrap of food that went into your mouth I stole. I stole it, so you wouldn't have to. And you turn around and beat someone for doing something your sister does."  
  
Drew stepped back, ashamed. Well, he was definitely punished for stopping Oscar from defending the boy.  
  
I skipped the second question. Anna had more courage than I did, admitting her sins.  
  
"It's wrong to hit someone smaller and weaker than you." Yeah, that's right, wrong to kill someone that you can kill.  
  
Does that mean you should only kill the people that you can't kill?  
  
But that's not possible. Should you die if you can't kill the only person you should kill because you can't kill him?  
  
This was way too confusing.  
  
Just teach them right and wrong. You know what it is, even if you don't do right.  
  
"I never want to catch you hitting someone who can't hit back again," I told the children firmly. I then turned to Katherine. "What you did was wrong. Do you understand me?"  
  
Katherine nodded, and then burst into tears, taking me aback. What did I say?  
  
"You care," she wailed. "I thought you wouldn't care."  
  
The other children began crying as well.  
  
"We won't do anything wrong anymore," one of them said earnestly. "Just, no one cared before, so we thought you wouldn't."  
  
"Of course I'd care," I responded loudly. "You're my kids, aren't you?"  
  
At that all of them began wailing in earnest, and crowded up around me. I kept a firm hold on the little boy as they began hugging me and wrapping themselves around me.  
  
I was so not getting this.  
  
"Ok, it's ok. C'mon, let's go to the beach."  
  
Wiping their tears, they followed eagerly.  
  
I led them, still holding the three-year-old. I tried asking what his name was, but apparently three-year-old humans were too young to understand.  
  
Sandy, who had attached himself to me, said, "Give him a name, like mine!"  
  
Like his. I looked at him grimly.  
  
Well, sand came from rocks.  
  
"Rocky. Ok?"  
  
Rocky nodded, his face starting to bruise from Katherine's beatings. Man that girl has a strong fist, I thought. I wonder where she learned how –  
  
I stopped. I didn't want to know where she had learned how to hit.  
  
Anna was herding them in the back, carrying little Anna, and it wasn't until we got to the beach where Oscar began to teach everyone how to swim did I have a chance to talk to her.  
  
"What did they mean, no one cared?"  
  
She looked at me through her vivid green eyes. She was gorgeous.  
  
And was wishing for death.  
  
"Well, their parents, if they had any, were indifferent. And those that didn't have parents had no one to care about them."  
  
I blinked several time. "You mean that they would prefer if I scolded them to not caring about what they did?"  
  
Anna nodded. "Yup. You know, I heard a quote once... what was it – oh yeah," she cleared her throat, "the opposite of love is not hate – it is indifference. They want someone to care about what they do, and to tell them to stop if it's wrong."  
  
She smiled. "In a way, they're wiser than most rich kids. They don't want their parents to pay attention to them because they don't know how awful it is to have no one care about you. And that's what you gave them."  
  
I shrugged. "Well, I'm still gonna have to punish Katherine."  
  
"I know," Anna responded. "And she might not like it, but you're right, she'll never learn not to beat up others if you don't teach her now."  
  
I stood up, and called Katherine. When she came over, I said, "You know, Katherine, what you did was wrong. I'm going to have to punish you for that."  
  
Her smile faded as she stood contemplating this. "But..."  
  
"No buts," I told her firmly.  
  
"I won't do it again," she promised eagerly.  
  
I looked at her, at her inquiring eyes and I knew that she would do it again, she would lose her temper and she would strike out again and again until she was too old to change her ways and by then it would be too late.  
  
I shook my head, drew her closer, and spanked her.  
  
Tears came to her eyes instantly, and she wept, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I promise I won't hit anyone ever again."  
  
Then she hugged me.  
  
What?  
  
"I love you," she whispered softly.  
  
No. Not again.  
  
I would leave, and I would die, and she would get hurt.  
  
I bent over and kissed her forehead. "Go say sorry to Rocky and play now. I have your word."  
  
She nodded, and ran off into the surf, with me looking on. She grabbed Rocky, hugged him, and then led him to the other children.  
  
"Well done," I heard Anna remark wryly.  
  
I turned to her. "You think?"  
  
"I've seen other adults handle it much worse."  
  
I grinned at her, and then turned at a sound.  
  
Another nine-year-old girl, staring with obvious jealousy at the children.  
  
I beckoned to her, but she either didn't see me or ignored me. Cupping my hands around my mouth, I called, "Come here!"  
  
This time, she jerked around, and saw me waving. Slowly, uncertainly, she came down.  
  
"Hey," I said, "What's your name?"  
  
"Lola," she responded.  
  
She was a pretty girl too, except not nearly as stunning as Anna. Her chocolate colored skin and black frizzy hair enhanced her winsome look, and I found myself fighting with jealousy again.  
  
I speared my jealousy and threw it into the ocean. "Do you have a family?"  
  
She looked at me uncertainly, as if curious to see why I would ask that, and then shook her head.  
  
Perfect.  
  
I smiled and said, "Then join ours."  
  
Her eyes opened wide, and she said, "Really?"  
  
I laughed, and then hugged her. This nine-year-old who I would be another mother too. "Go ahead."  
  
She looked down to the ocean, and then shook her head. "I want to stay with you."  
  
Well, that was surprising. "Alright," I responded. "But why?"  
  
This time Lola looked surprised. "You're my age, aren't you?"  
  
I had no idea what to say.  
  
"Well..." I started, and then looked at Anna.  
  
Just tell them.  
  
"Sit down," I said. "I've got a story to tell you."  
  
********************************Review Responses************************  
  
Hey! Sorry that the action is moving really slowly, I'm just introducing new characters. The plot will pick up though, pretty soon.  
  
Tabatha – Yeah, America is a little better than North Korea. And about fictionpress, no I have a different name. The website – my pen name there is Daughter of Abraham. Thanks for your review!  
  
Hell-Flame-Narf – Yay, you came back! And sorry about the Nadar, it just made sense to me because it was all in my head. I will define Nadar again later, for the people that forgot it, because it was a while ago.  
  
Anonymous-cat – Yes, it is sad. I remember being shocked about it when I learned that it still happened even in America. It'll be a lot better, of course, but not as good as the "rich kids" get it. And yes, Oscar as he is now called did make it to America. And about your suggestion, that's a good point. I didn't think about that. I might kill one of them (please?) because there are going to be fights, and it's just more realistic, but I won't have mass slaughters. And it will all be in good time. I know I should have spaced out the pearl fisher more and gave it more space, but I wanted her to get to America, so I just plunged ahead. This time though, I will give it more time so it isn't like you just met them and then they're dead. Anyway, thanks! 


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15:  
  
Cracking one eye open I looked around.  
  
Good. No one was awake yet.  
  
I crawled silently over to Anna and Lola, and then changed my mind, turning to Oscar.  
  
I bent over him and instantly he was awake. I touched my finger to my lips, and he nodded, understanding.  
  
We crept to a corner, into a small area between the dumpsters, and I took a quick look around.  
  
They were still asleep.  
  
I started morphing to cow, inwardly wincing at the sounds that came with it.  
  
Once I was fully morphed, I thought-spoke to Oscar, {Go get a knife and cut off one of my legs.}  
  
If he was surprised, he showed no sign. He would make a good Nadar, I thought unhappily. Because of me.  
  
Oscar returned, and began slicing at my back leg. I almost screamed at the pain, but held it in so I wouldn't wake the children.  
  
Anna and Lola had advised me to keep it a secret because some of the children wouldn't understand that it needed to be kept a secret.  
  
They advised me after I morphed for them, convincing them finally that it was real, and I was not insane.  
  
Eun-hee believed me much more quickly.  
  
Another wave of pain washed through me, and I forced myself to bear it.  
  
Finally, it came loose, and I demorphed, faint because of the pain.  
  
I rubbed my leg to assure myself that it was still there, and then turned to Oscar.  
  
{Go to bed.}  
  
He nodded, handed me the bloody cow leg and left.  
  
The children were still asleep.  
  
I looked at the cow leg, and remembered how Oba, Eun-hee and I had torn into raw horseflesh.  
  
It was to prevent my children from getting that hungry that I was willing to cut off my appendages for them to eat.  
  
And with the coming cold, I would need to do something about clothes, too. And not just mine - some of the other children would most definitely freeze to death.  
  
I was beginning to understand why Anna's mother left her.  
  
But Oba didn't leave Eun-hee and me, and so I wouldn't leave either.  
  
I started a fire with a lighter one of the kids had stolen, and began cooking the meat.  
  
The smell would wake them up.  
  
It did.  
  
Half an hour later, with our bellies filled, I directed the kids to our daily begging, thieving, and scavenging.  
  
Or in Anna, Drew, Lola, and Sandy's cases, whoring.  
  
They didn't really do it. I wouldn't have let them. But once they got the money from whoever wanted them, they would run as fast as they could, while other kids around them would stop them from being followed.  
  
We would have died without that money.  
  
Anna got the most money of course, but she also was the one that almost got caught the most. I always made sure I was part of her rescue squad, ready to morph in case she wasn't fast enough.  
  
Lola made some money, too, but mostly on perverts who liked her not yet fully developed body. And then Drew brought a good amount in, since he looked a lot like Anna. He and Sandy (who really was a pretty boy) attracted the homosexual pedophiles.  
  
And then there was Lupita, who was eleven. She was an illegal Mexican immigrant, who had crossed the border with Carlos, her twin brother. Carlos wasn't that great looking, but his sister was pretty enough that I put her out with Lola and Anna.  
  
The cutest kids, like Rocky, I would set out to beg. He wasn't old enough to go out with the fake whores, as Anna called herself and the others, because he was only three and couldn't run fast enough.  
  
And the other kids who weren't that good looking would either steal, or just look through garbage for anything edible.  
  
Like me.  
  
I hated the stealing. If I wasn't in a rescue group, I would be out knocking kids over (the ones who actually had homes) and taking their change, or stealing from old people that couldn't run after me.  
  
I remember Anna telling me about how in all the stories the thieves were good guys and they only stole from those who could afford it.  
  
Hah.  
  
I stole whatever I could get, whenever I could get it, and whoever I could take it from, poor or rich. The rich guarded their money better though, so we usually ended up stealing from people who were just a little better off than us. People who carried change around, those were the ones we would jump, and then run off with whatever they had.  
  
We still only had enough together for food each day. We were slowly putting together some extra surplus, getting ready for the winter that was already in the air. The kids would need shoes, and better clothes, and I did want to get some blankets for the scoop, as I was calling the place we slept in.  
  
Hey, I never lived in a scoop of my own before.  
  
The one day Sandy got caught by the people chasing him was the day I called a stop to all the fake whoring. The rescue squad wasn't fast enough, and the men that had paid him raped him and left him in the street.  
  
They took the money back, too.  
  
He was crying when the rescue squad got to him, and they took him back to the scoop and covered him up.  
  
Anna was holding him and rocking him back and forth when I got back from my rounds.  
  
"Maya," she called to me, and then softly told me what had happened while I grew numb.  
  
My fault.  
  
I reached out to brush the side of Sandy's face, and he turned to me, his face covered with tears, and full of pain.  
  
"I don't want to do it anymore," he wept.  
  
I nodded, and that's was when the whoring stopped.  
  
"Anna."  
  
I shook her awake.  
  
She slowly got up. It was about a week after Anna and her crew had stopped going out, and she was clearly dying for lack of something to do. We weren't going to go hungry yet, since our extras were holding out, but we needed some income.  
  
Lupita also got up, and asked quietly, "What's going on?"  
  
I smiled, an ironic smile that told of the grief of surviving on the streets while at the same time showed an attempt at being happy because each time our hearts beat, each time we drew breath, we knew that we were alive.  
  
I drew a deep breath, and then said, "I need your hair."  
  
"Hair?" Carlos asked, his Hispanic accent thick since he was sleepy. "What hair?"  
  
"Not you," I told him sharply. "Go back to sleep."  
  
He nodded, yawned, and then curled back on top of the cardboard box he slept in.  
  
I turned back to Lupita and Anna. Lola was awake by then, and she shook Drew awake when I told her too.  
  
Ok, all the people with good hair.  
  
"I found this little barber shop that specializes in lengtheners and wigs," I paused, and added, "Crazy humans."  
  
They all laughed quietly. Everyone older than eight knew now that I was an alien, except Oscar, who was six, because he knew before.  
  
"Anyway," I continued, "All of you have really good hair, and so I want to take you there. Once we sell off most of our hair, we'll have enough money to buy winter clothes and shoes for everybody."  
  
They nodded. It was a good plan.  
  
"And since we aren't fake whoring anymore," added Anna, "We really don't need our hair."  
  
"Yes, but what do los muchachos do?" Lupita asked, substituting the Spanish word for boys since she didn't know it.  
  
I shrugged. "The ones who have enough to give away, like Drew, will, and the others will keep it. Besides, the barber only wants good quality hair. The rest of us just have ragged mats on our heads, and no one pays for ragged mats."  
  
They laughed again, and Lola added, "Better get Kat, then. She has pretty good hair. She just needs to wash it, and it'll shine."  
  
I nodded, again noting how humans seemed to refer to people by shorter names. I had recently learned that Drew's name was actually Andrew, but it could be shortened to Andy, or Drew.  
  
I guess that was why they shortened my name from Mayanamar to Mah-yah to Maya.  
  
I led Drew, Anna, Lupita, Lola, and Katherine down winding alleys to an area that wasn't as bad as where the scoop was. We went in all together, and I watched as the barber man washed and cut our hair, joking about how dirty it was.  
  
But he washed it.  
  
I watched this man from the corner of my eyes, trying to see what he was doing. He was laughing, making the kids laugh, and complimenting them on their hair.  
  
Why? What good would it be for him if he was nice to a bunch of street rats?  
  
When he got to Anna, he gasped, and said, "What beautiful hair! I must pay you more for this."  
  
He looked at me, and I nodded, a little unnerved by his attitude. What was he trying to get out of us?  
  
After we were all done, and the girls were shaking their heads, unaccustomed to the light weight of it, he handed me three hundred dollars.  
  
All in five dollar bills.  
  
I looked at him as if he were crazy. "Why-" came from my lips, but I stopped it. I wasn't going to question good fortune.  
  
But he knew already what I had asked. "I was a street survivor, too," he told me softly.  
  
Three hundred bucks. I could actually get clothes for everyone, and not have to skimp. I could get sneakers (real ones!) for everyone. I could get blankets for everyone. And there would be enough left over for food on our bad days.  
  
I stared at the old man who was looking at us with his kind eyes.  
  
And I knew, without a doubt, that I should give one my children to him to raise as his own child.  
  
And he knew it too. "Bring a child to me, one that can be my own, so I can help your burden, and yet give the child a home."  
  
I nodded, and asked, "Boy or girl?"  
  
"Either one."  
  
I nodded again, amazed at our good fortune, and said, "I'll be back tomorrow."  
  
The next day I brought a seven year old who had run away from a foster home, and handed him over to the man.  
  
And so I began adopting my children away.  
  
It was better for them, I knew that. To give them a life that had hope beyond the streets, to grow up in a world that could actually give them something that they wouldn't need to steal or beg for.  
  
And then I wouldn't need to get close to them, because they would only get hurt if they lost me.  
  
It happened slowly. It wasn't like I started giving away children left and right; it was more of a gradual change. I certainly didn't give away any more children that winter, no, I went shopping with Anna and bought shoes with real soles, and clothes that wouldn't tear at the slightest stress and blankets that would actually keep out the cold.  
  
Anna even took Lola, Lupita and me to a girl's store where they sold lingerie, and perfume. Of course we didn't waste any money on frivolous stuff – we would have been idiots to buy makeup to attract guys that didn't exist while starving to death.  
  
But Lola was slowly developing a woman's body, and Lupita was too, while Anna already had. I was the only one stunted in my growth, and personally, I preferred it that way.  
  
To be beautiful on the streets is a death wish.  
  
So we went to little shops, and bought clothes that would gain us entrance to book stores without stares (my rags had almost been tattered to pieces by then), and I even took the kids to the dollar menu in McDonalds, which I went nuts over.  
  
I didn't know food – real food, not garbage – could taste so good.  
  
We spent almost thirty dollars there, and that was a once in a lifetime splurge.  
  
Even baby Anna got a few fries.  
  
Those three hundred dollars saved our lives that first winter.  
  
And slowly I became more used to America, and to living in this lifestyle. It was still a little odd after a year in the ocean as a dolphin, but I became used to air all around me, became used to the way we got food, and even became used to two legs instead of a tail, just as I had to get used to two legs after four legs.  
  
And I became used to having friends that I could talk to, friends that I could trust, a family again, except this one was more stable, it wouldn't die on me as all my other ones had. For this was America, and Lupita and Carlos had told me about the American dream, that you could get anything as long as you worked hard enough, and I realized, yes, Lady Liberty, I can feed my kids since I am working hard. It took some help, and it took some risks, but I am happier here, where there is food to get, unlike in North Korea where there wasn't any, even if we could steal it.  
  
I could work on my dreams here; I could work on building a new world that was hard to survive in, but worth it.  
  
Until a year rolled around, and my new fragile world that I had built so carefully came crashing to pieces around my head, just as a new one sprang up to take its place, a new world that was so much more sturdy because it depended only on me.  
  
Or so I thought.  
  
***************************Review Responses*****************************  
  
Foreshadowing! *creepy music plays in background* duh, duh, duh... ok, sorry.  
  
Birdie num num – Yay! Thank you! Thank you! *bows* And you are in luck, because I've got heaps and heaps of stories planned out. My only problem is that I hope I finish them all before high school ends, because I want to work more on my original then, which I am starting I hope you like that story too!  
  
Custardpringle – thank you for your compliment! I am glad that I'm improving – that's what I started writing on fanfic for!  
  
Tabatha – that's ok, thanks for taking the time to review! I hope you like this chapter.  
  
Twilek – I'm glad you like Sandy... I hope you aren't too sad about what happened to him... It was a realistic situation, which is why I had it in there.  
  
Anonymous-cat – Yup, our Maya is still an alien, although she seems to be getting used to living with humans. And yeah, I always liked playing with that theme of having parents that cared what you did. Even though I don't like getting punished, when I think about kids who have indifferent parents, or no parents at all, it makes me (sorta) appreciate it. At least enough to write about it. And the rest of the stuff, I will reveal in the next chapter!  
  
Hell-Flame-Narf – Yeah, it is interesting about the whole parent caring thing versus indifference. And I hope you like this chapter!  
  
Hey – thanks.  
  
Seo hyun – yay! Thank you! 


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16:  
  
Tony came the next year, and with him came half of my new world.  
  
Lola came down to the scoop one day that year, and laughingly said, "There's a new boy out there, and he's so picky. He was sifting through the bins, and he wouldn't eat anything unless it was practically untouched."  
  
I grinned, and asked, "Is he asking to starve?"  
  
"Actually, begging for it," Lola responded. "He won't even beg from rich people - too proud, I think." She shook her head. "He obviously is too clumsy to steal, and we don't whore anymore, but that's all he'd be good for."  
  
I smiled the street-rat smile. "Sounds like everybody here when I first met them."  
  
Lola laughed again, and grinned back at me. She led me to the boy who was meticulously picking through perfectly edible food.  
  
He turned at the sound of our approach, and yes, he was beautiful.  
  
But his face held scar marks that marred his beauty, and even more recent bruises covered his face and arms.  
  
He looked at us for a moment, sizing us up, and turned away, dismissing us as a threat. But a moment later, he turned back.  
  
"Do you mind not staring at me?"  
  
The sound of his voice, speaking coherently, stunned me for a moment. Here was a window into the world outside the streets, a brief glimpse into a clean, new, intelligent life.  
  
I would get this boy, no matter what.  
  
"What's your name?" I asked, longing to hear his voice again.  
  
He looked at me for a moment, and then said, "Tony."  
  
"Follow me, Tony," I told him. "I can help you."  
  
He looked at me again for a moment, and then turned, and followed me to the scoop.  
  
He was fourteen.  
  
Fourteen years of life in a world of light that I had always been denied entrance to.  
  
He told me everything he knew, and I drank up his words everyday, reveling in his knowledge.  
  
For he knew so much more than anyone, even Anna, whose knowledge had stopped coming to her at age ten.  
  
Four years made a huge difference.  
  
Tony taught all of us. He was our teacher, and we would hold school in the daylight and would learn everything from Algebra to the Civil War of America.  
  
I had no idea what a rich culture Earth had.  
  
About a month after Tony's arrival I lifted my head at Carlos' whooping cry. That kid needs to learn how to keep his mouth shut, I thought. Shaking my head, I got up, noticing that Oscar was with Carlos, and both of them had their hands full.  
  
I hope they brought something good.  
  
Oscar and Carlos came striding into the scoop, their faces flushed with triumph. They both ran to me, and handed me a bottle.  
  
"Drink," Carlos told me, his face eager. "Makes, you know, good feeling."  
  
I smiled. Both Carlos and Lupita had gotten better at English, but in his excitement Carlos reverted back to Spanish or at least bad English.  
  
I uncorked the bottle and downed a quarter of the liquid in one gulp.  
  
And almost spat it out.  
  
Long habit of never letting anything out of my mouth once it was in it made me swallow the burning liquid.  
  
So I swallowed.  
  
Once I got past the burning in my throat, I realized, it wasn't that bad.  
  
Not bad at all.  
  
I took another swig, and nodded and smiled as Carlos asked me how it was.  
  
The other kids started coming over, and someone took the bottle out of my hands. I reached for it but Carlos handed me something else.  
  
"It's glue," Carlos explained. "Sniff it."  
  
So I did.  
  
It was so strong, as strong as the liquid was, which I vaguely heard someone call alcohol. I began laughing hysterically, as I took another sniff, and another, and another.  
  
Someone passed me another bottle and I handed them the glue. I chugged more down, and laughed again, surrounded by sounds of the other kids laughing, sniffing glue, and drinking.  
  
The world is spinning  
  
And it's so so beautiful  
  
So (how do I describe it)  
  
perfect  
  
A mix a whirl of color  
  
of light  
  
of life  
  
I can do anything! Anything! Anything as long as the world is full of this sweet but sour nothing.  
  
It's in my mouth, I want it, I want it, I want it, the taste, I can do nothing without it  
  
Give it give it give it give it  
  
A hand jerked a bottle out of my grasp.  
  
No!  
  
I sat up (what was I doing on the ground?) and saw the face that the hand belonged to.  
  
Who was he again?  
  
Oh yes, Tony, my good friend, come drink, and sniff, and all will be right with the world.  
  
He was shaking me (why was he shaking me?) and saying Stop  
  
Stop what? This beauty, this glory?  
  
"Please, you have to stop. My dad always got like this before..."  
  
His voice trailed off, eyes full of worry.  
  
He was so beautiful.  
  
I reached out for the bottle, but he was holding it back, no give it here  
  
And he wouldn't give it  
  
mine!  
  
"Stop, give it, you're annoying, you're mean, you're ugly, you're a useless freak you Tony you"  
  
Following step by step Tony give me the bottle  
  
No!  
  
He smashed it on the ground  
  
A million trillion pieces  
  
Snarl and leap, pound my fists into his face  
  
how dare he exist  
  
And we're on the ground, and he's not fighting back, no he lifts his arms to hide his face  
  
He's been through this before, look; his arms know where to go  
  
And the other kids, jumping on him now, hitting  
  
laughing  
  
(it's just a game)  
  
I lurched away, suddenly sick to my stomach, sick of the shouting, laughing  
  
of baby Anna's wail  
  
just like North Korea  
  
I leaned over and puked out everything I had ever eaten, drink and garbage and cow legs and horse guts and eggs and grass  
  
Grass.  
  
I went behind the garbage bins looking for some grass when I remembered that I needed to be an Elemaki to eat grass.  
  
So I thought of myself and giggled as my stalk eyes shot out, as my legs came out and ripped through my clothes, like my tail did, as my head changed and my brain replaced  
  
And I realized, with absolutely perfect horror what had just happened.  
  
I demorphed as quickly as possible, the booze and drugs gone from my body. I rushed out to see Tony curled up on the ground, with the children beating him.  
  
My fault.  
  
I ran at them, shouted, screamed, but they were too drunk, too wild, and there was no quick morph fix for them.  
  
My clothes were in shreds.  
  
Funny what you notice in situations like this.  
  
I was an idiot.  
  
And I didn't need to be surrounded by drunken kids to figure that one out.  
  
I pulled Tony out of there, behind the dumpsters, and yelled at all the kids to go to bed. Some of them obeyed, falling to the ground where they were, but others continued to sniff and drink.  
  
Sniff and drink. Sniff and drink.  
  
I was just glad that smoking wasn't in it.  
  
I turned to Tony. "I'm... I'm sorry."  
  
He nodded, and smiled painfully. "You stopped them, and no one ever did that before."  
  
"But I started it."  
  
"But you stopped it."  
  
I shook my head, and began to tend to his wounds, waiting for the night that would take everyone to sleep so I could take the drugs and destroy them forever.  
  
I was so stupid.  
  
Three hundred dollar miracles don't happen everyday. And I had to go and rip my clothes to pieces because I was drunk and high.  
  
I was almost crying.  
  
Seven hours later, I was weeping.  
  
It had been about noon when Oscar and Carlos had brought in the drugs, and almost everybody had either passed out or fallen asleep. I set to work cleaning everything out, glad for some punishment to alleviate my guilt, when one of the children came running in at dusk.  
  
Katherine.  
  
She looked around at the mess, and asked with a bewildered stare, "What happened?"  
  
I grimaced. "We all got drunk."  
  
She looked at me. "Why are your clothes torn up?"  
  
"I got drunk."  
  
Katherine looked at me for a second, and then shook her head. Grabbing my arm, she yanked me out onto the street, talking so fast I couldn't understand her.  
  
"Slow down, what are you saying, I can't unders –"  
  
"Anna's being raped, and I –"  
  
I shot off as fast as I could, and then realized I didn't know where I was going. I turned back, and asked Katherine, and she told me, "In front of the Beelzebub's."  
  
I responded, "Go wake up anyone who can be woken, and tell them to meet me there."  
  
Hopefully they wouldn't be that drunk.  
  
Shoot. Shoot. Shoot.  
  
I was about to start cursing, which was a sign that I was losing Control.  
  
I never cursed. It was a sign of weakness, of showing emotion, and I couldn't afford that.  
  
I couldn't afford to feel emotion, let alone show it.  
  
I tore down the alleyways, hoping that I wasn't too late.  
  
But what are you going to do, Maya? Morph to some hideous creature and kill everybody in sight because you were drunk and weren't keeping an eye out?  
  
If anything happened to Anna, it would be my fault.  
  
Again.  
  
Like everything else.  
  
Oh Anna...  
  
I took a quick glimpse around, and I could see Drew at the end of the alley, running as fast as his legs could take him, his face white with horror.  
  
And just turning the bend were Oscar and Carlos (they got up really quickly), oh no, their faces are covered with guilt.  
  
Just like mine.  
  
And Lupita, too, she was coming, and -  
  
I spun around to avoid running into a pole, and then continued racing down the street, catching a quick glimpse of Sandy and Lola, and there was Katherine, and Rocky, what was he doing, he was four!  
  
Oscar killed when he was five.  
  
Because of me.  
  
I could fear beginning to grip me, and I shook it away, running away from it, away from the sheer panic that was chasing after me until I wasn't running to save Anna, I was running from all the fears and doubts and nightmares that had haunted my footsteps, that had lurked in shadows behind me, all the dead faces that were waiting for me to fall, to trip and stumble so they could devour me, like I had devoured so many lives so that I could continue to live my miserable, meaningless life.  
  
For what was the point of trying to live when something like this happened? When we gave ourselves to drugs, when –  
  
And I knew, with a shadow of a doubt, that I was too late for Anna.  
  
Nadar instinct.  
  
***************************Review Responses*****************************  
  
Yay, I got this one up quick. Cliffhanger, or not really actually, but kind of. Anyway, review please!  
  
Anonymous-cat – And another kind of cliffhanger! I'm getting better at those. I used to end all my chapters with nice tied of endings, but not anymore! I didn't get to answer all your previous review questions with this chapter, but the next chapter will answer them. And as for your guess, um... I want to tell you, but I can't! Sorry, but you will see soon. Thanks for your review!  
  
Hell-Flame-Narf – thanks, I am a real freak about details. I'm a perfectionist so I have to have every single little thing right or it bugs me to death. And I was thinking about writing a book with this kind of theme... I might do that. Thanks for the idea – I'll play with it and see what I can come up with!  
  
Tabatha – I'm glad you liked the cow part and the hair part. I was trying to show how desperate they could get. And here's the next update! And how long is this, well, this chronicle will be maybe another ten chapters, I think, and then I have another set of short "books" that will be a couple of chapters, I'm not sure yet, and then a third chronicle which will be about as long as this one, a little shorter, and then I have another long "book" that will be longer than this one and then another "book" that will be about this long and then a one-shot. Whew! I have it all planned out, and I hope to finish by the end of high school. I'm also working on my original, but that one updates much more slowly because I don't have a deadline for that. I'm probably going to put up my list on my bio some time. I'll try to get this chronicle done before you leave (I can't promise, sorry) but if I don't get it done, I'm going to have a lot more for you anyway. And that's fine, if you get it by mail, I'll be glad that you read it anyway!  
  
Birdie num num – Yeah, I felt bad for Sandy too, but you know, plot development and stuff like that. And I love the Dollar Menu too; I only get that now, since it came. Thanks for your review! 


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17  
  
I reached Anna just in time to see a group of men leaving her still body.  
  
"Go after them," I snapped at Lupita and Carlos, who had caught up to me by then.  
  
They ran off, their long legs keeping astride with each other and with their pursuers.  
  
Drew and I turned toward Anna, who was gasping for breath. Drew threw himself on top of her, burying his tear-covered face into her bare flesh.  
  
I knelt, and kissed her forehead, hating myself for letting this happen.  
  
"Maya," she breathed. Turning her head to me, she said softly, "Oh, Maya, don't blame yourself."  
  
Too late.  
  
She laughed, a little helpless thing that died away as soon as she drew another breath. "I want to say something brave and noble, but Eun-hee already told you everything important."  
  
Oh Anna, you're the only one who I can weep with over Eun-hee's death, don't leave me now!  
  
Who will I weep with over your death?  
  
"Maya, I know you think that being a Nadar is a bad thing, but if you use your power, your fight-"  
  
Her voice caught as she stopped to breathe.  
  
"Fight to protect that love that everyone needs. That's the only way you can be a Nadar and still fulfill your vow to Eun-hee."  
  
I nodded, and bowed my head as Anna spoke her last words to Drew in whispered tones.  
  
Drew came to me, his face contorting as he tried not to cry. "She's dead."  
  
I started to hold him, but I knew that would only strengthen our bond.  
  
And when I died, he would only be hurt.  
  
So we both held our tears in, and I instructed the kids who had come after Sandy to take Anna's body back to the scoop.  
  
And then Drew and I shot off after the others, who were leaving a trail for us to follow.  
  
But first, I knelt by Anna, and taking one of her cold, dead hands into mine, I acquired her.  
  
And morphed her as I ran.  
  
The trail was easy to find, and Drew and I followed it, now sister and brother.  
  
And I was a beautiful huntress, a goddess racing under the full moon, tracking her prey, Artemis of old, the virgin -  
  
I didn't want to think about that.  
  
We reached the others, who were hiding behind trees at the outskirts of the city.  
  
Beyond them was a fire, which the men were around.  
  
This would be fun.  
  
I gave whispered orders to the children around me, and then strode out into the flickering firelight.  
  
"Having fun?" I called out with Anna's voice.  
  
They turned, and froze.  
  
Oh yes, revenge would be sweet.  
  
Drew slinked up behind me, a few feet behind so the effect would make it seem like he was a shadow or a ghost of me.  
  
I sneered, "Now what will you do?"  
  
At that signal I knew the rest of the children would sneak forward, slowly, slowly, until...  
  
"Hyeaaaaah!"  
  
Oscar's strong yell came ringing out of the darkness, telling me that the children were in position, besides scaring the already terrified victims.  
  
Drew and I rushed forward, and the other children ran in from all around, closing in on the men, forcing them to stumble towards the bright line of fire.  
  
We shoved, we pushed, while our drunken prey shouted and cursed, flailing about, but not sober enough to fight back that effectively.  
  
I reached out and yanked the hand of a man, tripping him as he fell face first into the fire with a scream.  
  
I saw Drew brutally smash a bottle into another man's face, but the other children, like Rocky, what could they do?  
  
The men were drunk, but they were still men, and none of us knew how to fight.  
  
So I carefully and consciously demorphed, and remorphed to Elemaki and just as carefully and consciously killed the remaining men.  
  
My clothes were really in shreds by then.  
  
When I was done, I demorphed, and helped the other children shove the bodies into the fire. We then threw dirt onto the fire to put it out.  
  
I could have morphed to one of my water or slime spewing creatures and put it out myself, but I was too tired.  
  
Besides, Rocky and Sandy were trembling.  
  
I called them over.  
  
They came, shyly, in fear of my power, and I held them close and then they knew it was me.  
  
But who was I?  
  
I was a 1st generation Nadar, and I realized (calmly and coolly) that yes, I had killed these men without bloodlust.  
  
I had murdered in cold blood, and the absolutely terrifying fact was that I could have - should have - been in hot blood.  
  
Could have lost Control, but I didn't, I kept it and now I had led these children down the same path.  
  
And so I told my story again amid the dying ashes of the fire to the children around me, who were no longer children - if they ever had been.  
  
And the first oath they swore as a Nadar was to never tell anyone of my story unless I gave them leave.  
  
We went home, to the scoop, and there we held a funeral for her.  
  
We went to the beach, by the ocean, and there we held a quiet funeral for Eun-hee, for everyone who was awake.  
  
Which included my Nadar and Tony, who had been waiting for us since Anna's body came in.  
  
I morphed the dragon and cremated her beautiful body.  
  
And Drew scattered her over the ocean.  
  
That night was the first time I looked at the stars since I had come to Earth. I had, sometimes, on the Andalite Home World, but space had just been another ocean, a sea of stars, but here it held you in, trapped you...  
  
And I remembered Anna's hand in mine, I remembered Eun-hee's hand in mine, and I mixed their morphs in two, a Forsil Maneuver, so that my dead friends, who had made me, would always be a part of me.  
  
I was a half-breed once more, but this time by choice.  
  
That was when I began longing for something new, something that would let me do something...  
  
Something that would be the other half of a world that would fit with the half world that Tony had brought with him.  
  
That something came the next day.  
  
"Wake up."  
  
I shook Tony, who shrugged, and turned away. "Go away."  
  
None of the kids who knew my story had said anything when I became a half- breed, although some of the little kids were wondering where Mamai, as they called me went.  
  
So I told them my story, again. Just enough details for them to understand.  
  
And they did.  
  
Humans are amazing.  
  
I sighed, and then grabbed his shoulders and forced him to sit up.  
  
My ten year old frame was just strong enough to keep him up.  
  
"What is it?" he asked grumpily.  
  
"We need to get the kid's ready for their annual bath. The beach is going to be crowded with tourists by the time we're ready, so I want to go to the river."  
  
He stared at me with blank, sleepy eyes. "What does that have to do with me?"  
  
I drew in a sharp breath of frustration, thinking for a moment, if Anna had been here she would have understood.  
  
Well, you can blame yourself for that.  
  
"Help me wake everyone up," I finally said, and he got up to do so.  
  
We traveled to a nearby river that passed through a nicer part of the city.  
  
It was dirty, but it was cleaner than we were.  
  
I was only half listening while Tony talked about how unsanitary the water was, and how he used to shower every day, until the hot water stopped coming because no one paid the bills.  
  
I was amazed that I actually understood that.  
  
A year ago I wouldn't have.  
  
I was concentrating mostly on keeping a two-year-old that we had picked up from drowning herself. She was the most energetic thing on two legs, and it took almost all my concentration just to keep her from tripping.  
  
I looked around for a brief second, to make sure everyone was ok, and I noticed Drew was holding one-year-old baby Anna, making sure that she was safe.  
  
His face regained some of the peace that it had before Anna's death, but it would be long before he would be the same.  
  
If he ever was the same.  
  
"Where are your guys' parents?" a voice behind me asked.  
  
I turned, and looked into the concerned eyes of a mother, a rich one.  
  
"We don't have none," Katherine spoke up, but Rocky interrupted.  
  
"She is!" he said, pointing at me. I smiled, and tried to indicate by my eyes that he was a little too young to know what he was talking about.  
  
Unfortunately, they weren't Nadar.  
  
"Oh, you poor thing," the mother said, while her husband next to her said, "You're acting as all these kid's mother?"  
  
Ok, so maybe they did get it.  
  
"Yeah," I said. Then impulsively, I asked, "You want one?"  
  
The question obviously took them by surprise. I mean, how many ten-year- olds who have been proclaimed mothers by four-year-olds ask a normal couple if they want a street kid?  
  
Their answer took me by surprise.  
  
"Yes," the mother whispered, almost fervently. "And I wish I could take you all."  
  
I turned around to get a better look at her.  
  
"We could get you to an orphanage," the father said.  
  
Instantly everyone froze.  
  
"What, did I say something wrong?" the father asked.  
  
"Um," I started, "the orphanages will, you know, split us up."  
  
He nodded.  
  
Wow. He actually understood.  
  
So, anyway, back to business. "Which ones do you want?"  
  
The mother shook her head. "Oh, I can't choose. You choose, you know them better."  
  
Yes, I knew them better, and I knew which one's could make it on the street, and which ones would need a real home.  
  
I handed them the two-year-old I had been holding, and then looked around again.  
  
And I saw them through the mother's eyes, she saw them as poor, helpless children, all of them needed someone's love.  
  
But I also knew them as street rats, as former whores, as thieves, as Nadar.  
  
"Tony," I said. He jerked up in surprise.  
  
"Me?"  
  
"Yeah, you."  
  
He walked over, looking at the father uncertainly. Of course. Tony's former father hadn't been of the best quality, and he would be most worried about that.  
  
"I'll love you," the father said.  
  
I think everyone froze, not just Tony. I know I did. To know what the boy was feeling, and to be able to take away that fear, or at least name it, that...  
  
That was incredible.  
  
The man took out five twenties, and handed them to me.  
  
"I hope it helps."  
  
I clutched it, and watched as they drove away, Tony waving.  
  
Another hundred.  
  
How do the street kids survive without this kind of cash?  
  
The answer: they don't.  
  
We returned to the scoop, two members short, and on our way there we ran into a man.  
  
Or boy, I couldn't really tell which. He was almost a man, I guess.  
  
But the thing that interested me was that he was fighting two street thugs, who I knew through experience were the toughest ones on the street.  
  
And he was beating them up.  
  
I sent the children the long way back to the scoop, with the Nadar to guide them, and stayed to watch.  
  
I was an idiot.  
  
One of the thugs lurched towards me, probably intending to beat my brains in for daring to watch him get beat up, when the boy/man leapt forward into the air, hit the guy at such an angle, that I heard the crunch as bone gave way in his neck and the man dropped dead.  
  
I stared at the person who has just delivered the death blow.  
  
His face was so impassive, his muscles so controlled...  
  
I wanted to do that.  
  
I watched as he dealt with the other thug, and then he turned to me.  
  
"Are you alright?"  
  
His voice startled me out of my reverie, reminding me of...  
  
Tony, that was it. His voice reminded me of Tony's.  
  
And all I could think of was to say, "Teach me."  
  
"What?" he asked.  
  
"Teach me," I whispered. "I want to learn how to fight."  
  
His serious face broke into a smile. "All right. I'll teach you."  
  
I started to lead him to the scoop, but stopped, and turned. First things first.  
  
"What's your name?"  
  
He looked at me for a moment, as if he were weighing me, as if he were deciding whether I was worthy of his trust or not.  
  
Then he shrugged.  
  
"Call me J.P."  
  
******************************Review Responses**************************  
  
So, a lot of stuff covered in this chapter. And Jumba Jookiba, I know you haven't reviewed in a while, but if you are still out there, here he is!  
  
Anonymous-cat – Hi! I'm sorry, yes, Anna is dead, and I did read your review about that, but I already have my story in my head, and to change it would shift it onto a whole different track, which wasn't planned out.  
  
Tabatha – that's a good idea, about the printing. I never thought about it, because I always thought of them being in electronic form. I wonder if fanfic will ever take these stories off?  
  
Hell-Flame-Narf – sorry, I was going into the deep symbolical stuff at the end. I hope it cleared up this chapter! And yes, I did have an anti-drug thing... I like to give messages in my stories.  
  
Custardpringle – well, I was thinking about it, but instead I just went around and asked everyone if they were ever high, or drunk, or both. Is that better?  
  
Birdie num num – here it is! I hope you don't have to tear all your hair out...  
  
Hey – yeah.  
  
Sorry, I have to leave for Tae Kwon Do so I can't really give long reviews. See ya! 


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18:  
  
"No, you have to pull your hip in more. You can't just thrust your leg out. Heel, hip and shoulder need to be in a straight line."  
  
"Like this?" I asked, extending my leg.  
  
"No." He shook his head. Taking my shoulder in one hand and my thigh in the other, he pushed the first and pulled the second, causing me to lose my balance and topple over.  
  
J.P. laughed, and reached out a hand to help me up. "More thrust," he ordered.  
  
After a half hour he let me go, so he could train the other kids. I went to the dumpster, held onto it for balance, and continued to practice.  
  
J.P. kept teaching all of us basic defense moves for the rest of the afternoon, and then moved onto specifically training the Nadar at my request.  
  
If they were going to kill, I wanted them to do it properly.  
  
Finally, exhausted at the end of the day, we lay down in the scoop, while J.P. continued to stretch.  
  
He was looking south.  
  
"Is that your home?"  
  
My voice must have startled him because he jerked back to me.  
  
"It doesn't matter", he said. "I can't go back."  
  
I had read that line so many times in so many books that I had to stifle a laugh.  
  
J.P. looked at me sharply. "It's not funny."  
  
I shrugged. "At least you had a home."  
  
He turned to me. "Yeah, I had a hell of a home."  
  
I listened intently to the tone in which he cursed, and noted his passion filled tone. This boy didn't have the same self-control that I had, that I taught my kids to have.  
  
Apparently he took my silence for disapproval because he apologized.  
  
"It's ok," I said. "Just don't curse around my kids. I don't want them to grow up as the people around them, low and vulgar mouthed who have no lives, nothing to live for."  
  
J.P. blinked a few times. "That's quite a speech."  
  
I grinned. "Thanks."  
  
I waited for this boy to open up to me, like so many others had, to tell me their story.  
  
I never met anyone whose stories were boring.  
  
I wish mine was.  
  
"I'm nineteen," he started suddenly.  
  
I waited.  
  
He looked at me, with hard suspicious eyes. "Have you ever heard of The Sharing?"  
  
"The what?"  
  
My answer must have satisfied him, because his eyes softened. "Maya, I know you won't believe me, but I have to tell you this."  
  
He paused, and the hairs on my skin began tingling.  
  
Wait. Hairs?  
  
I looked at my arm, and saw, yes, there was hair on my half breed body, that wasn't there with my Asian body.  
  
And my hair, too, I reflected, was now brown, with waves in it instead of straight black, and my eyes were brown too, weren't they?  
  
My body was bigger, too, not as small as before, but not as big as Anna had been, which made sense.  
  
And how old was I? I was ten with Eun-hee's body, 13 in my mind, and with this new body...  
  
I would stick to age ten. It would be less confusing. I had been small for my age before, now, I would be... less small.  
  
"Maya?"  
  
J.P.'s voice snapped me out of my reverie.  
  
"What's wrong?"  
  
I shook my head. "Nothing." I turned to him and said, "What were you saying?"  
  
For a fraction of a second I saw a gleam in his eyes, and then it stopped as he said, "Nothing." in the exact same tone I had said it.  
  
I grinned and stuck my tongue out at him, and he laughed in response.  
  
"Don't tease me," I said, sensing that he needed me to be lighthearted.  
  
We bantered back and forth, both of us laughing softly, both of us hiding our darker sides.  
  
Until suddenly he said, "Maya, there are aliens on Earth."  
  
My mind raced ahead of my facial expressions, and so I controlled my shock, and instead acted as if it were another joke and smiled.  
  
But J.P.'s face was absolutely serious, and he said again, "Maya, I'm serious, there are."  
  
I decided to play the part of a confused human. "What are you talking about?"  
  
He stared at me for a moment, and then asked, "You know how I'm good at Tae Kwon Do?"  
  
I nodded.  
  
J.P. took a deep breath, and then started his story.  
  
"I had always been good at fighting. I started Tae Kwon Do when I was almost five, and ever since then I've been fighting. And then my parents got divorced when I was in 11th grade."  
  
He broke off for a moment, staring at a spot in the distance.  
  
"11th grade," he repeated. "Couldn't they have waited, two years? I would have been in college, not in this dump!"  
  
I waited, again, as he breathed several times, to calm himself down.  
  
"I was depressed, so I started doing drugs. Yeah, I know I was an idiot," he said to my glance. "But what was I supposed to do? Parents are supposed to stay together; I'm supposed to stay out of drugs. But if parents don't do what they're supposed to do, then do I do what I'm supposed to do?"  
  
A tricky question, which I had no answer to. My parents hadn't stuck together, and I had become a Nadar. I really didn't advise J.P. to follow my example.  
  
"One of my friends invited me to the Sharing, an organization that accepts everybody." He laughed bitterly. "Yeah, they accept everybody, all right!"  
  
"Anyway," he continued, "I became a full member after a month. By then the drugs had screwed up my life, so I repeated 11th grade."  
  
The longest pause of all, and I remembered it was like this with Oba, the short, emotion filled clips of speech, then the pauses.  
  
And right after the pauses, the biggest secret.  
  
What was it about me that attracted so many sorrows? Was I a bottomless empty well that people needed to pour their stories into?  
  
Maybe it was the fact that I absorbed their stories, endlessly, and had no reaction that made them feel shame.  
  
Whatever it was, it worked.  
  
"Being a full member means you are infested by a slug like alien, called a Yeerk. It slithers in through your ear and takes complete control over your brain, over you. You are called a controller, and your body is now used to help further expand the Yeerk Empire."  
  
I stood very still, afraid of losing just regular self-control, not Control.  
  
I whispered, "They're here?"  
  
In one fluid motion I was on my back, J.P.'s hand around my throat.  
  
"If you are a controller," he told me through gritted teeth, "I'll kill you."  
  
I couldn't answer, since his fingers were pinching off my breath, so I thought-spoke to him. {I'm not a Yeerk.}  
  
The hand on my throat relaxed, but stayed over it. "You're an Andalite, then."  
  
I grimaced. "Almost."  
  
He looked at me, and then helped me up.  
  
"Talk," he ordered, and I did.  
  
What else could I have done?  
  
So I told him of my life, and he listened, asked me to morph for him, which I did, and then resumed his story with much more confidence now that he knew I was an alien.  
  
"So I can skip all the background info and jump ahead. All right. Well, I guess I'll start with Tae Kwon Do. It was my life, you know. And not just a hobby, I mean literally, I was going to make it my career. I breathed it, I lived it, even when I was getting stoned I still kept it up even though the rest of my life was going to pieces."  
  
He paused for a moment, and I nodded indicating that I understood how important Tae Kwon Do was to him.  
  
Reassured, he continued. "Anyway, my Yeerk kept that up. Of course he did - but when it was time for college, and time for a career choice, that's when he took over. He broke my leg, and while it was healing, told my dad that I was going to continue to do Tae Kwon Do just as a hobby, nothing more.  
  
"My dad went nuts. He started screaming about how much money he had put into my Tae Kwon Do, and how he absolutely refused to let me even think about not doing it as a career."  
  
J.P. paused for a moment, and then continued thoughtfully, "That saved me. I don't know what I would have done, otherwise. My Yeerk brought up good arguments too, but Dad refused to listen. Like my Yeerk would say, 'My entire career depends on my body. If something happens to it, like my broken leg, but worse, my career is shot to pieces.' And my dad would say, 'You're going to let fear stop you from doing something you love?'"  
  
J.P. stopped, and gave a strangled laugh. "He made me see a shrink. A shrink. But this guy didn't try and get in my head, he, I don't know, tried to be friends with me. And my Yeerk rebuffed him, like a nineteen year old boy would have done.  
  
"His name was Dr. Samuel Lancing, and we got as close as my Yeerk would let us. You know, just talking and stuff like that. I got to know his whole family, his wife, his son, Sammy, and like five other foster kids."  
  
J.P. shook his head. "They had so many kids. Foster ones, adopted ones, one by birth, and millions of animals that they had rescued. I called them the Foster family and he had laughed, and told me his wife's last name was Foster."  
  
"And then we went camping, just him, and me," J.P. whispered. "My Yeerk agreed to come because it was only two days. And, it was fun, but, at the end of the two days..."  
  
His voice trailed off, but picked up again. "I woke up in my tent and found myself so tied up I couldn't move anything. I stayed that way all day - he didn't come to see me at all.  
  
"Then the Kadrona starvation started, and I knew that he knew.  
  
"A few minutes before my Yeerk came, he came and stood at the tent door, watching me scream under my gags, and struggle under my bonds. And he didn't say one word.  
  
"After the Yeerk finally slithered out, he bent down and cut me loose. He gave me a meal, and then took me into his car, and we drove for a couple hours, nobody saying anything.  
  
"We got to the outskirts of this town, and he helped me out of the car, and handed me some cash. And then he spoke for the first time since the beginning of that day.  
  
'Run. You can never come back. The Yeerks won't search for you, but if you come back, they will get you.'"  
  
J.P. finished with, "And so I'm here. That man saved my life and gave me freedom, and that's why I'll never go back."  
  
I didn't respond, but sat thinking over what he had said.  
  
And what Eun-hee had said. And what Anna had said.  
  
So, the Yeerks were invading Earth, were they?  
  
I knew where my next stop was.  
  
But my kids...  
  
I would take who I could, and if I couldn't, I would come for them later.  
  
I looked over at J.P., who glanced in my direction.  
  
But his glance told me more than his whole talk had.  
  
Tell my father, his eyes pleaded. Tell him I'm alive. And thank Samuel Lancing for me. You're the only person I've told. Carry this for me.  
  
And I answered, yes, I will.  
  
And we turned, and slept, and strangely, I didn't dream of Yeerks and of battle, but of Dr. Samuel Lancing, and his family, this strange man who would risk infestation to help a boy he barely knew.  
  
J.P. stayed with us for a year, and then I told him to leave, because he was ready for a new life.  
  
And when he left, he took one of my children with him, Leslie, a ten year old girl.  
  
He went east, towards the rising sun, and I stayed on the western shore for another year, until I was twelve years old.  
  
But in the year that J.P. stayed with us, he taught my Nadar and me the Tae Kwon Do il-gul-pil-sah fighting style.  
  
Death with one blow.  
  
And I learned it.  
  
Well.  
  
****************************Review Responses****************************  
  
Hey, sorry I haven't updated in a while. This is a shorter one, but a key part of the story, so I hope you enjoyed!  
  
Jumba Jookiba – And there is J.P.! I hope you liked him. I know that he really probably isn't like you at all, but I had him in mind already and just didn't have a name yet. So thanks!  
  
Tabatha – Yeah, you are right about the computers. Lots of times stuff crashes. I have all the electronic versions of them now, but I probably should print them out sometime if I want to keep them. And Anna did die, but her memory will live on, since Maya remembers her everytime she has to refulfill her vow.  
  
Anonymous – cat – Yeah, sometimes fanfiction doesn't load your reviews and it's really annoying. I'm sorry about Anna, but J.P. didn't die – I had to use him in this story, and I had already planned out that he was going to leave, and adopt one of the kids. And about Maya acquiring dead beings... Well, to make the long story short, I had already killed Osgaron, and then I realized that I had not had her acquire him, and so I changed the rules. Also, the morphing rules are kind of vague... and the dead have DNA, so I didn't understand why not. And about the kids, true, they aren't as ruthless are Maya, but that is mostly because I'm doing a first person from her point of view. I'm going to do a book (spoiler warning) from Oscar's point of view, and from some of the kids as chapters in his book, and then it shows a little more of their brutality. Besides, they did kill those men and not flinch. And about Maya not losing Control, that was more how she is becoming a true 1st gen Nadar, one who kills and doesn't care, and who views killing as something that they just do, without consequences. 3rd gen Nadar are supposed to lose it, but Maya' plan to keep Control backfired and so she became more ruthless. Sorry it was confusing – I hope this helped!  
  
Hell-Flame-Narf – No, only a year passed since Maya landed in America – she's ten. She's 12 at the end of the chapter though, two years passed since Anna's death in this chapter. And thanks for your review!  
  
Custardpringle – Hee hee. And I reviewed again! And Rachel took me shopping and got me clothes that matched!!!!! See tomorrow!  
  
Hey – yeah, I think you're right.  
  
Random Pirate – I hoped you liked J.P.'s story. I wasn't sure whether I should switch to 1st person for him, but I decided to keep it all in Maya's perspective. And I got all your other reviews... thanks so much for reviewing each chapter! And no, J.P. didn't die, I had planned to keep him alive until he left with a kid. And here's the update! 


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19:  
  
I woke up at three in the morning to the sound of two new babies we had found, wailing.  
  
Wearily I got up and walked over to the boxes where they slept.  
  
Lupita was already there, and she handed me Anne, and picked up Gilbert and crooned to him in Spanish.  
  
I stared at Anne, stupid from lack of sleep. Her mouth was open and she was shrieking, and all I could notice was that she didn't have red hair.  
  
That thought made me smile, and woke me up a little, as well. I began rocking Anne until her howls died down, singing Korean songs softly.  
  
When they both had fallen asleep, Lupita and I put them back in their make shift cribs and crept back to where we had been sleeping.  
  
"So Anne dreams in Korean and Gilbert dreams in Spanish," Lupita whispered to me, and I laughed softly.  
  
We had found Anne first, lying in a gutter, and since I had been reading Anne of Green Gables to the children for a while, we decided to name her Anne.  
  
Gilbert showed up in the night with a note attached to his blanket: Take care of my baby.  
  
So we did.  
  
And as we settled down, I thought of Lupita and how lovely she had become. Fourteen, and a woman in body and mind -and so she had to stay home at the scoop all day.  
  
Ironic, wasn't it. Lupita was supposed to be equal to a man, but she had to stay home "as a woman" because of the men who would hurt her if she left.  
  
That's some equality.  
  
So in the end, women and men wouldn't really be equal until men stopped viewing them as sex objects.  
  
But since men were wired that way, it really wasn't a bad thing for a guy to be a gentleman and treat a girl like a lady in order to control his sexual impulses.  
  
And for the men who had no self-control, well, that's why I know Tae Kwon Do. Which Lupita does too, but it's still difficult to fight six sex-crazed men and get out unhurt.  
  
Lola would have to start staying home, too. She was younger, and a better at Tae Kwon Do than Lupita since she started younger, so another couple years later, maybe.  
  
I yawned and curled up to go to sleep.  
  
And I dreamed.  
  
Strange twisting dreams that were neither in Spanish or Korean but in thought-speech, the language of all.  
  
And when I woke up, I was trembling.  
  
And I knew no one would leave the scoop today.  
  
So we hung around, just resting or reading out of our stolen cache of books. Little Anna was three now, and was learning how to read, so she was always over there. She learned faster than everyone else had, since she had started so young.  
  
I looked over to see her serious face bending over a book, her lips sounding out the words, although her face was almost covered by her brown curls.  
  
It was an affront to Drew, that little Anna's hair was brown instead of red, the color of her father's hair over her mother's.  
  
But it was a credit to Drew that he never commented, never mentioned it, never spited little Anna about it like so many fathers do.  
  
He would be a good father when he grew up, I reflected, rubbing my chin. I turned around to tell Oscar to bring Gilbert to me so I could change him.  
  
Oscar was frozen in place, mouth open in a conversation with Katherine. He was nine years old, as was Katherine, and they both did seem to like each other.  
  
But they wouldn't do anything. Not in my scoop.  
  
That was besides the point. The thing that worried me was that he was back.  
  
The Ellimist.  
  
Except this time I wasn't the shy, soft-spoken Elemaki child that I had been before.  
  
I was a Nadar.  
  
"Ellimist, either show yourself, or leave me alone. I'm tired of you messing with my life."  
  
YOU HAVE SUCH A GOOD HUMOR, MY LITTLE NADAR.  
  
My fury rose, but I refused to let this know-it-all get the pleasure of making me upset.  
  
"What do you want," I asked in the most disgusted tone I could come up with.  
  
I WANT YOU TO BE HAPPY.  
  
I shot to my feet, screaming at the air, "How dare you! Make me happy! I have been miserable since I met you, since your stupid promise to make me into a five year old human, which you kept in your stupid lying ways!"  
  
My voice rang, echoing off the frozen bodies of my children, which hit them, their frozen limbs, melting as they regained their agility, as they crowded around me, their worried faces saying, what's wrong, what's wrong?  
  
I looked up, and saw him, an old man with wings, and I cursed his name.  
  
When I was done, he smiled at me. I AM ALREADY CURSED, LITTLE NADAR.  
  
I knew that, but I still wanted him to feel the same pain that I had felt for so many years.  
  
And it was really starting to bug me that he called me little Nadar. How demeaning was that, after all I had been through and done?  
  
What, you're going to take pride at your murders now?  
  
Stung by my own words, I yelled at the Ellimist, "Just leave me alone!"  
  
He turned to me, and my children huddled closer, unnerved by his appearance.  
  
TONIGHT, AT SUNSET A WOMAN AND A MAN WILL ARRIVE AT THE BEACH. THEY HAVE COME FOR YOU, AND FOR OSCAR. YOU WILL GO WITH THEM TO THE CITY THAT THE YEERKS HAVE INVADED. YOU AND OSCAR WILL LIVE WITH THEM AS PART OF THEIR FAMILY. I HAVE SPOKEN, AND YOU WILL OBEY, OR YOUR CHILDREN WILL PAY.  
  
"Hey, that rhymes, notice it?" I shot back nastily. "Obey, pay, pay, obey. Did you do that on purpose?"  
  
GOODBYE, LITTLE NADAR.  
  
He disappeared, and for several seconds no one said anything.  
  
Then Carlos walked up to me and stuck out his hand.  
  
"Come back for us when we can help you."  
  
His words cut through me, and I broke down, kneeling, sobbing.  
  
My children, Nadar and Kyan, my soldiers and civilians, came to me, some sobbing, some tightly holding onto me.  
  
All but Oscar, whose burning eyes looked at me.  
  
His eyes, bright as the North Korean man who had told Eun-hee and I how to get to America, held a message for me. And it said: I will follow you.  
  
But my eyes were filled with tears, and I had no response for him, but he knew, anyway, because he came and held me, and we wept together.  
  
And after the weeping was done, we planned, I advised, and I gave orders on how to survive while waiting for me.  
  
Finally, the sun was setting, and so I turned and looked at my children for what could have been the last time.  
  
"I love you, my beloved children."  
  
And Oscar and I left, to the beach, with the last rays dying over the blood red sea.  
  
We waited, standing, saying nothing, when a car drove up, and two people came out, arguing.  
  
"Sam, I don't think we should come. It's been two years since you dropped J.P. off, we don't know if he's here anymore or not."  
  
The voice called Sam responded, "I know, but I had a dream that someone was waiting for us. Even if we don't find J.P., we will find someone."  
  
J.P. Sam.  
  
Dr. Samuel Lancing.  
  
What had J.P. said? That the Lancing family took in everybody...  
  
I grabbed Oscar's hand and walked over to them, placing myself squarely in front of their path and looked them straight in the eyes.  
  
They were a middle aged couple, the husband looking a little older than the wife who still maintained the early thirties look.  
  
The wife had a such an air of fear around her that it almost scared me, but I remembered my mission, and spoke.  
  
"We're the ones you are looking for."  
  
Samuel looked at us sharply, and then nodded slowly. "Yes, you are."  
  
We got into the car with them, Oscar holding his breath as it started and drove off.  
  
All I could do was marvel at how quickly my life had changed because of one dream.  
  
Like the dream sent to Eun-hee's mother.  
  
Three hours driving south, and then we tumbled out of the car, stretching our sore muscles.  
  
They were amazing people. Three hours had proven it.  
  
Not to mention they were obviously used to being foster parents.  
  
They told us to call them Sam and Helen, or since they were going to adopt us, Mom and Dad, but only if we wanted to. Oscar readily agreed – he didn't remember his parents, and so had no problem having a new one.  
  
And as for me, my mother was Mamai, and so Mom was just a title, like I would call anyone.  
  
And as for Dad, well, I didn't think that much of Papai.  
  
They ushered us into the house, and turned on the lights – finally, automatic lights! – while Oscar continued to gape and be amazed.  
  
"And meet Samuel Lancing Jr.," Mom said, with a laugh, introducing a boy who looked about Oba's age. He nodded to me, and then said, "More kids, already?"  
  
"Don't be rude," Mom said immediately, smacking him lightly. Turning to us she said, "Don't mind him, he's a little crazy sometimes."  
  
All three of them laughed, and then the introductions continued.  
  
"My name is Maya," I said, "And this is Oscar."  
  
They nodded, and then introduced me to two other kids, Cyndi, a cheerful six-year-old and Eamon, an afro-headed senior.  
  
They then took me to a wall covered with eighteen photographs.  
  
"We took them in, over the years. Some we adopted, some were foster children. All of them graduated highschool."  
  
This was Dad saying this, and as he said it I couldn't help but look over at him, the way he said it, the aura he carried around him, kind of like the air of fear that the mother had had, but dropped when she got home.  
  
Mom went over to the kitchen while Sam showed us our rooms.  
  
"Annabel just graduated, and an eleven year old moved back with his family, so we have two rooms open," he explained, as he showed us in.  
  
The rooms were... so... so...  
  
Opulent.  
  
They had rugs, carpets, desks, beds, and a strange-looking computer.  
  
But what I loved the most were the bookshelves.  
  
The bookshelves covered an entire wall, and they were filled with books, with titles from The Odyssey to Lord of the Rings, to everything and anything imaginable.  
  
And Oscar's room, too, was almost exactly the same.  
  
I think we stopped breathing for a while, remembering what we were used to, and what the others were still sleeping on.  
  
Sam led us downstairs then, when dinner was almost ready.  
  
Dad was waiting at the kitchen table, some papers on the table and pens as well. He looked up when we came in.  
  
"Oh, Maya, Oscar, I'm filling out adoption papers, and I need to know how you spell your names."  
  
Good question. How did I spell my name? In my knowledge I had never written it down.  
  
Oscar went first. "Um, I have no idea."  
  
"Is O-s-c-a-r ok?" Dad asked.  
  
Oscar shrugged. "Yeah, sure, that's fine."  
  
"And you, Maya?"  
  
I also shrugged.  
  
Sam said, "Well, it can either be spelled M-a-y-a or M-a-i-a. Which do you want?"  
  
How pointless, I thought at first. What did it matter?  
  
"Ummm..."  
  
Then, I remembered, that this name, the name that I thought was useless, would someday be leading armies against North Korea, against the Yeerks, against the Andalites.  
  
How should I spell it? Maya or Maia?  
  
Just pick.  
  
"M-a-y-a," I finally responded.  
  
Dad nodded, and then wrote it down. "There. Now you are officially Maya and Oscar Lancing."  
  
We spent the rest of the night eating the incredibly rich food that I had enough self-control not to pig down so I wouldn't have to spend my first night here puking.  
  
But that night I didn't have to worry about food.  
  
I spent the night on the floor.  
  
The bed was way too soft.  
  
***************************Review Responses*****************************  
  
Sorry, this is like my worst chapter yet, but I hate transitory chapters. It'll get better. Thanks! And I got this one up quick, so only two reviews:  
  
Birdie num num – Thanks! I'm afraid this chapter won't be as scintillating, but the action will speed up soon!  
  
Anonymous – cat – Yup, J.P. was a Controller, except now he's gone, and I brought in Dr. Samuel Lancing. They probably seem really flat characters right now, but I'll give them depth. And about him suspecting that Maya was an alien, I kind of assumed that the town that Jake and people lived in was the only town that the Yeerks had invaded. That's just what I got from the books. I might have been wrong, but I guess I kinda took fanfiction liberties with that, like the acquiring dead people. And yes, Maya will use the death blow a lot. And when she fights off the Yeerks, she will use a morph too. Speaking of which, do you mind if I ask a special favor? I can't think of a battle morph for Maya. I was thinking of her Elemaki form, but the problem is that she isn't that good of a fighter, but anyone can be dangerous swinging a metal knife around whether they have skill or not with it. I was thinking maybe her dragon morph, but that'll get risky, blowing fire on people with buildings around. I had a couple of ideas, but I couldn't really get a good one, so if you think of one, just tell me and that'll be great! And about the other kids, that would definitely be a problem. Maya has a little more control, so she would not care as much if teased, but some of the other kids... They aren't perfect with control. So I'm going to have fun with this. And I'm going to update my bio with all the books I'm going to write, so look their for more info! 


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20:  
  
Good morning to you morning glory,  
  
Kissed and caressed by the dew,  
  
A beautiful morning glory,  
  
Good morning, glory, to you!  
  
I woke up to the sounds of a husky voice singing, and a little voice going, "Daddy, let me sleep."  
  
"Time to wake up, sweetheart," Dad's voice said as it blew into my room.  
  
I yawned, got up off the floor and wandered downstairs in the pajamas I had borrowed from Mom. On my way there I bumped into Oscar who looked lost in a huge t-shirt and boxers of Sam.  
  
"Maya? Oscar?" I heard a voice call.  
  
Mom.  
  
"Yeah, we're here," I answered. We walked down the steps to the smell of something cooking.  
  
Whatever it was, it smelled good.  
  
"There are waffles on the table, come and eat."  
  
My eyes opened wide at the sight of light brown almost bread like things. Eamon was sitting there, talking to Sam about something while they poured dark brown liquid onto their waffles, did Mom call them?  
  
I sat down, almost trembling. Picking up the golden bread with both hands, I bit off a corner.  
  
The taste exploded in my mouth. It was so much sweeter than bread, so much lighter than rice...  
  
I finished it in two bites.  
  
"Whoa, Maya, you a little hungry there?" Sam asked, grinning.  
  
I nodded, and reached for the stack of waffles and demolished it. I looked over at Oscar who was also wolfing down as many waffles as possible.  
  
I reached for the bottle of brown stuff and poured it into my mouth, and went ecstatic. The taste! The sweetness! The sugar! It was pure delight! I had never tasted anything like this.  
  
I handed the bottle to Oscar who gulped it down, while I commented, "It's so different from street food."  
  
He nodded, his face covered in the brown liquid already.  
  
I wiped away the crumbs stuck on my face with the back of my hand and turned to Sam and Eamon who were staring at us in horror.  
  
"Oscar! Maya!"  
  
This time Mom's voice wasn't as sweet.  
  
"What are you kids doing?"  
  
I said, "It tastes good," at the same time Oscar said, "It's food."  
  
We looked at each other, and burst out laughing. Yes, we were taste crazed food starved street rats come to live in suburbanite America.  
  
Mom looked fixedly at us with hands on her hips. Sighing, but starting to smile, she took a wet cloth and wiped our faces clean. "There."  
  
I touched my tingling damp face and looked at her with wonder.  
  
"You cleaned my face..." I whispered in awe.  
  
"Yeah, I know," she answered, her brow wrinkling.  
  
How...  
  
How do I explain to this woman what it means to have caring hands touch you, to help instead of harm, to give instead of take...  
  
Apparently she did understand, though, because a minute later she was on her knees embracing us both.  
  
She sang:  
  
I will never hurt you.  
  
I will always help you.  
  
If you are hungry  
  
I'll give you my food.  
  
If you are frightened  
  
I am your friend.  
  
I love you now.  
  
And love does not end.  
  
She finished, whispering, "I read that in a book by Card."  
  
I nodded, remembering the one author who had captured my feelings about Control, and had actually written a book about it.  
  
Mom released us, and then said, "I got some clothes for you while you were asleep. I had to guess at your sizes, but go ahead upstairs and change."  
  
Oscar and I obediently trotted upstairs holding new clothes that were miracles.  
  
Clothes that cost more than a few bucks, clothes that weren't stolen...  
  
I pulled on the jeans and the t-shirt and looked at the mirror.  
  
It was the first time I had looked at an unbroken image of myself, ever. I hadn't even seen my Elemaki self, or my Korean self.  
  
But now...  
  
My hazel eyes stared back at me. I had had this form for two years, and I still wasn't used to my wavy brown hair that I kept tied up with a piece of string so it would stay out of my face.  
  
I stared, fascinated, when Mom pushed through the door with a short stick that had a hole bunch of spiky things sticking out of it.  
  
Huh?  
  
She beckoned me over, and so I came.  
  
"Sit," she ordered and I sat down on a chair that was rather unwieldy, not to mention that it was on wheels.  
  
Mom pulled the string out, and began pulling the thing through my hair.  
  
Almost immediately Mom hit tangles, and she apologized. "I'm sorry, honey, I know this is going to hurt, but you really need your hair brushed."  
  
Brush. That was what the spiky thing was called.  
  
But where was the pain?  
  
Mom was surprised, too, because she asked, "Doesn't it hurt?"  
  
I shook my head, and smiled. After dealing with intense pain for so long, twinges from my hair nerves were nothing.  
  
In the end, though, I still had to cut off a good two inches of tangled, snarled, hair.  
  
Mom braided my shorter hair, which came to my shoulders when loose. I touched it, amazed at how soft it was.  
  
"There," Mom said, satisfied. "Come down now."  
  
We went down together, where Oscar was waiting for us, his hair also brushed.  
  
Mom ushered us out, holding a purse in one hand and keys in the other.  
  
"We'll be back soon," she told Dad. "I'm just going to do a little shopping."  
  
We walked into the car, and Mom took off, driving through the streets, explaining each building that we passed. We then pulled into a parking lot, and walked into a huge building with a SAM'S emblazoned on it.  
  
We walked through the store, eyes wide while Mom bought "groceries."  
  
I found myself resisting the urge to nick something, and out of the corner of my eyes I saw Oscar whip something off a shelf into his pocket.  
  
The temptation was too strong. All my life I had never had enough, which developed into the attitude of taking everything I could get in case I would need it later.  
  
I began quietly stealing stuff off shelves, food mostly, but trinkets, stuff I could sell. Anything.  
  
"Maya, Oscar, come watch the cart for a second."  
  
Yeah, watch the cart for thieves like me.  
  
We stayed there, silent, until Oscar pointed at a carton. "What's that?"  
  
I shrugged, and reached for it. "I don't know."  
  
I opened it.  
  
Eggs.  
  
"What are those things?" Oscar asked.  
  
In response I grabbed one and handed another to him.  
  
"Don't eat the outside shell," I warned, and then cracked it over my mouth.  
  
Oscar copied me, and we proceeded to eat another egg each, when Mom returned.  
  
She was horrified.  
  
"I leave you alone for five minutes and you eat raw eggs?"  
  
I looked at her. "How are you supposed to eat it?"  
  
An hour later we were eating scrambled eggs, fried eggs, sunny-side up, sunny-side down, hard boiled...  
  
I never knew there were so many different ways you could eat eggs.  
  
It was only later that I hid the stuff I had stolen under my bed - just under fifty bucks worth of merchandise.  
  
That day I learned how to shower, and I was clean, really clean, with soap and not with river or sea water.  
  
And I learned how to go to the mall with money, not with longing eyes and hungry hearts.  
  
I left with more than Mom paid for, again.  
  
It was so hard. I mean, for once in my life I would have plenty, but I still couldn't shake off my instinct to always horde, always take, always grab.  
  
But I got used to it slowly. Oscar and I organized the stuff we stole, and planned how to get it to the kids.  
  
It's not like we needed it.  
  
In the end we ended up mailing it to that old barber with a letter inside the box, asking him to give it to the other kids.  
  
Paul, the boy who had been adopted by him would know where to send it.  
  
And like everywhere else, I got used to the opulence, the luxury, the wealth that was so evident. I even got used to not stealing, after Oscar got caught by Dad. We had a huge "family meeting" as Sam called it, where we learned that stealing was wrong.  
  
No duh. I tried to explain to Mom and Dad that we knew this, and you know what? They understood.  
  
Mom was incredible. She knew what Oscar and I were trying to explain, in our own incoherent way, and put it into words for us.  
  
Needless to say, we didn't steal again.  
  
And I gained weight, as did Oscar, but we both decided to control our eating habits to prepare.  
  
Prepare for what? Prepare for war.  
  
War that would follow me everywhere.  
  
We got Mom to set up a training room in the basement, and Oscar and I went down every day to fight and spar.  
  
So passed what Sam called the lazy golden days of summer, until the doom of school descended after Labor Day.  
  
Mom always laughed, and playfully smacked him when he said that.  
  
To be honest, I was eager. I had learned a lot about school from Tony, from homework to bullies.  
  
And I was eager to meet them.  
  
After all, I had vowed to save humanity from itself.  
  
And for once, I was the one with the power.  
  
I wasn't the victim.  
  
Mom registered me to seventh grade and Oscar to fifth grade, at the local public school where Sam entered tenth grade, Eamon his last year of high school, and Cyndi, first grade.  
  
I was the only one going to middle school.  
  
And I think all of us were nervous about that.  
  
The night before school started Dad had taken me out on a walk, under the stars. We talked about the next day, and other things, and I found myself opening up to him, telling him about life on the street.  
  
And he was so good, so quiet while listening to me, that I talked on, not about North Korea, yet, but about the hunger, the thirst, the pain, and the longing for love.  
  
And as I talked, I felt like I was in the presence of a mountain of strength, a towering oak, able to withstand everything the world had thrown at him without getting hurt.  
  
And when he talked, I clung to his words, and I wondered why?  
  
The answer came immediately.  
  
Because I have hungered for a father that I never had, a father who would love me and care for me, a pillar to lean on and depend on.  
  
This was my father.  
  
And he kissed my cheek goodnight, on the bed now since Mom insisted.  
  
And the next morning he woke me up in time for school by singing me Morning Glory.  
  
Ok, I admit it, I was kind of nervous.  
  
Mom had checked in with the vice-principal Hedrick Chapman, and explained my situation. Mr. Chapman offered to have a girl be my guide until I was more used to suburbanite American schools.  
  
And so I met Jenny King.  
  
She was a bright girl, almost radiant. Happy, cheerful, you know the drill. And she was nice, too, even after the adults were gone and she was showing me around.  
  
"And here are the bathrooms, but don't use these because it's basically where all the potheads come," she advised me as we walked to our first class.  
  
I nodded, mentally gagging. After my experiences, I wasn't going to try drugs again, anytime soon.  
  
So the day went on. Bells ringing, teachers introducing themselves and their classes, no homework assigned, though – Jenny explained that teachers wanted to be nice the first day back from school.  
  
Alright, that's fine with me.  
  
The trouble started in the lunchroom. I was gaping at the food, and bumped into a boy who stumbled into another boy, who immediately turned on him.  
  
"Watch where you're going," the bigger boy snapped.  
  
"Watch yourself," the boy I bumped into mumbled.  
  
The boy's eyes flashed, just like so many eyes I had encountered...  
  
Before I killed them.  
  
No. Not here, Maya, you already talked this over with Oscar. In suburbanite America, it is not normal to kill people randomly.  
  
But it was normal to have a fight once in a while...  
  
As long as I was careful and controlled myself, it wouldn't a problem.  
  
The first boy was shoved into the wall, and I turned to the bully, and said, "I was the one to push him, so shouldn't you be revenging yourself on me?"  
  
Of course the guy was too stupid to understand me, and even stupider, because he didn't understand it wasn't the shoving that had made him mad, but the fact that the boy had said, "Watch yourself."  
  
I planted my feet into the ground and waited.  
  
But I questioned my motives, like I had almost every time before I fought. Why was I doing this? I didn't even know the boy.  
  
And I found the reason, and it wasn't pretty.  
  
For the past month, I had only been fighting Oscar, and we had been careful not too hurt each other too badly.  
  
But now...  
  
After all, I was a Nadar.  
  
And I was eager for a fight.  
  
***************************Review Responses*****************************  
  
Sorry for updating so late! If History class was longer, I would get a lot more written, but alas, unfortunately, it isn't. I'd probably gag myself if it was any longer, though, and if I didn't have my palm pilot to write in anyway...  
  
Ali-Adi – Thanks! But I like writing powerful chapters over transitory ones, so I tend to skimp. If I could get both up to level, that would probably be good!  
  
Custardpringle – hee hee. I hope you like Cyndi!  
  
Hell-Flame-Narf – Thanks for your review! I'm glad you think so.  
  
Tabatha – did you get a new pen name? Wait, no duh, of course. And (SPOILER WARNING) she will tell them about J.P., eventually. Not yet. And congrats on your new job and your cruise! Have fun!  
  
Jumba-jookiba – No, they aren't controllers. What made you think that? And thanks about Maya's battle morph, I'm gonna keep thinking about that one, too.  
  
RandomPirate – Thanks for reviewing, even if it was, what, one in the morning? *gasp* I could never stay up that late. Or get up that early for that matter...  
  
Anonymous – cat – Yeah, KA wasn't that clear about how many invasions there were. So for my story, I just have one. Or two, but I don't have a lot of invasions. It works out better that way. And also, since the Yeerk threat seemed to be gone after the last book, I thought it was just one town. Or, actually, maybe KA did that on purpose for all the fanfiction writers to play with, I don't know. And thanks for the idea about the battle morph! I like that idea, great cats are always good hunters and fighters. I might have an alien morph, or maybe I'll go online and type in fierce animals and see what I get. And about the Ellimist, I've got big big plans for him. They'll come up eventually, the third chronicle, actually. Man, I really have thought all this out. And the Lancings will deepen out, I hope this chapter helped do that. And Maya will experience as normal of a life as she can get. And I'm glad you liked the name debate – I'm gonna play with that later too! And about The Wind from the Plateau, yeah, I was playing with the way sex is portrayed in our culture, and I made little jabs at abortion and stuff too. It's mostly a reaction to my friends, who don't believe anything I do. I want them to read it, but it probably won't make an impact. *sighs* 


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21:  
  
I sat in the vice-principal's office, feeling slightly apprehensive.  
  
Jenny was with me, because, she informed me, she never ate lunch.  
  
I fingered the three bucks in my pocket, and decided that missing lunch wouldn't be a bad idea. Oscar and I would make six dollars together, and six dollars a day would be really helpful on the street.  
  
Of course Mom and Dad would find out, eventually, and would start sending money out of their pocket, but they had spent enough money on us.  
  
Mr. Chapman looked up from the papers on his desk. His mouth was thin, and his entire countenance told me, I expected trouble from a street rat like you.  
  
I started to smile, but remembered that I was supposed to be in trouble. Instead, I sneaked a glance at him, noted that his mouth and shoulders said that he did expect trouble from me but not so soon, and then looked down at the floor again.  
  
"Maya, you understand that fighting is not allowed in school."  
  
I nodded.  
  
"I won't give you a detention this time, since you are new here, and because of the circumstances, but next time, I will have to give you a suspension, as that will be your second time."  
  
I nodded again.  
  
"You can go now, and I don't want to hear of your fighting again."  
  
"I won't," I mumbled, as Jenny and walked outside his office.  
  
Once outside, Jenny looked at me and giggled. "What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"I won't. You said 'I won't' when he said he didn't want to hear about your fighting. Does it mean you aren't going to hear about when you fight?"  
  
I shook my head. "Jenny, you're going in circles. I just said whatever would get me out the fastest."  
  
Jenny shrugged. "Whatever. You gave him a good beating, anyway." Then she glared at me. "Even though I am a pacifist."  
  
I grinned, almost wickedly. "And you're an idealistic dreamer. War is everywhere."  
  
She shook her head. "That's not true."  
  
"Give me an example, then," I taunted.  
  
She was silent, and I was smirking. Except for the Garden of Eden, there had never been peace.  
  
Which is why the sin entering man made sense. Sinning humans created war, and hatred, which came from Lucifer.  
  
"Stop smirking," she ordered me, and then smiled. "So we'll be friends, then. Me, the idealistic pacifist, and you, the violent fighter."  
  
I smiled back, but inside I began crying. Another innocent girl that would love me.  
  
I would just pray that she didn't end up like the rest of them.  
  
The trouble was, I didn't know to whom I was praying to.  
  
And I didn't want to know.  
  
Jenny and I continued walking to our next class, talking now, debating about human nature, or sentient nature in general.  
  
Although neither of us mentioned sentience by word.  
  
The last bell rang and I eagerly waved goodbye to Jenny and hurried to the bus, but Eamon and Sam were already waiting for me.  
  
"Hop in," Eamon said as Sam explained that they would usually pick us up unless Eamon had an after school activity.  
  
I nodded as they sped off to the elementary school where Cyndi was waiting.  
  
But Oscar was nowhere in sight.  
  
"Oscar got in trouble," Cyndi told us as she climbed in. "He was fighting an' there was blood everywhere."  
  
"On the first day of school?" Sam asked incredulously, and Cyndi nodded.  
  
I kept quiet.  
  
Eamon parked. "Let's go see if we can help him out."  
  
Oscar was in the principal's office, listening intently to the principal's lecture.  
  
Or appearing to.  
  
I knew how to look like that too.  
  
He turned at the sound of our approach, and mouthed to me in Korean, "I couldn't help it - I was dying for a real fight."  
  
My blood ran cold at his words. What had I done?  
  
"Oscar! Oscar, are you listening to me?"  
  
Oscar turned back to the principal, but she was already distracted by our entrance.  
  
"Hello, may I help you?"  
  
Eamon gestured at Oscar. "We're here to pick him up."  
  
The woman opened her mouth to speak, but Sam beat her to it. "What exactly did you do, Oscar?"  
  
Oscar responded shortly, like he always did. "I put my backpack down and a guy tripped over it. He shoved me, and I beat him up."  
  
The woman sighed. "The other boy had to go to the hospital, you understand? The hospital!"  
  
That got me mad.  
  
"Oscar," I snapped. "What happened to your Control?"  
  
Everyone else heard control, but I knew Oscar knew what I meant by his shoulders which immediately slumped.  
  
"I'm sorry, Nu-nah," he whispered, calling me by the Korean title that he used.  
  
I nodded, and gazed coolly at him, reminding him that we had a mission, and it would not be good if he compromised it.  
  
He gazed back, his uplifted chin telling me he understood.  
  
Cyndi's voice broke through our silent conversation. "What are you guys doing?"  
  
We both turned away. "Nothing," I answered.  
  
I only half paid attention while the principal finished berating Oscar, telling him he'd have to have a detention tomorrow.  
  
Oscar nodded and yes ma'amed his way out of the office, and as soon as we were in the car I began scolding Oscar sharply in Korean.  
  
"What did you fight him for? Because you needed a fight? At least find a bully to fight! That's what I did! And you sent him to the hospital! Did you forget how to kill with one blow, or did you just want the other boy to bleed!"  
  
Oscar heard me, silently, gravely, and answered, "He was a bully, and he just wasn't bullying anyone at the moment."  
  
I nodded, and then told him, "Then wait until they are, so you can get away with it. We need to be good, so Mom and Dad don't think we are too much trouble."  
  
Oscar's eyes opened, realizing what I was saying. Be good, so we aren't kicked out.  
  
"What are you guys saying?" Eamon asked suddenly, while Sam grinned, and joked, "I think they're talking about us."  
  
We laughed, and pretty soon everyone was talking about normal things, like school, and work and weather.  
  
The rest of the day passed peacefully, and the next day- until lunch.  
  
Jenny had left, muttering something about talking to a teacher, and so I wandered through the halls, touching the lockers, just being.  
  
I stopped by the double glass doors and looked outside, at the city.  
  
And suddenly, Nadar instinct led me through them and out the other side.  
  
I stood on the sidewalk for a moment, and then walked on.  
  
I found a bus that would take me further into the city, and used some of my lunch money to pay for a ticket.  
  
I stayed seated and silent for the entire ride until we near the slums.  
  
And then I got out.  
  
I wandered through, noticing that there were no kids my age.  
  
And then I turned a corner and ran into a fistfight.  
  
My first instinct was to attack, and so I launched myself at the man with a knife, who was clearly trying to stab his opponent.  
  
My leg shot out in a curved back kick at his neck, breaking the guy's windpipe and causing him to gasp for air that couldn't go to his lungs.  
  
Several seconds later, he was dead.  
  
I turned to the other man, who looked like he was in his mid-twenties.  
  
"I am in your debt," he said, his chest heaving.  
  
I nodded, and leaned in. "I need contacts. People who will take me in after a fight, people who don't ask questions."  
  
He nodded, and then answered, "Money silences many questions."  
  
"But so does loyalty," I whispered back.  
  
He got it.  
  
"My number is 214-8933, this area code. I have a motorcycle, a license, and a gun. My name is-"  
  
I cut him off. "The less information told, the better. You can always ditch a phone, but a name..."  
  
He nodded, said, "Call me Santa, cuz I give you presents."  
  
"And me."  
  
He smiled. "You're so regal; I think I'll call you Princess."  
  
Santa gave me a ride back to school, and promised to get me more contacts.  
  
I breezed into class just in time.  
  
The next lunch time I hopped a bus with a specific mission in mind.  
  
The Sharing.  
  
I picked the lock at the front door, and then slipped into the deserted building.  
  
But first, I morphed to Anna.  
  
She had told me once, that she wished she could be like me, fighting to protect the helpless.  
  
And this was the closest way to let her do it.  
  
My pale white fingers brushed a wall as I walked quietly down a hall.  
  
Then voices.  
  
I pressed my ear to the wall, and willed myself to become completely still.  
  
"... ships ready? Andalites will be taken completely by surprise."  
  
That was all I needed to hear.  
  
But before I left, I reached into the alarm detonator and set it to ring after five minutes.  
  
It would cause a considerable amount of confusion.  
  
My first move. Yeerks, your turn.  
  
I stepped backwards, satisfied, and turned to go when a voice called up the hallway.  
  
"Hey, what are you doing here?!"  
  
But my eyes were riveted only at the metal casing hanging by her belt.  
  
It looked like something you would use to measure the prolixity of a surface, but I knew better.  
  
Inside it would be a Dracon beam.  
  
"Excuse me, people are not allowed in out of hours. How did you get in?"  
  
I said nothing, but willed her onward. A little closer, just a little closer...  
  
My right foot shot out of nowhere and for the second time in two days it connected with a windpipe.  
  
As she died, I reached forward and took the casing with trembling, eager hands.  
  
I took one of your pawns, Yeerk Empire. And I'll checkmate you yet.  
  
With my new weapon I fled, and morphed only later, when no one was in sight.  
  
Let them search the crime scene. Fingerprints were useless, since Anna was dead. And as for clothes, how many millions of teens wear jeans and white t- shirts?  
  
All the same, I would have to be more careful about clothes.  
  
I hid the weapon in our training room after swearing Oscar to secrecy. He was eager to join me, but I said no, you can't morph and blame other humans.  
  
That night the murder was on the news and I watched myself on the tape of the security cameras. I watched as I calmly killed the woman and took something from her belt.  
  
And I felt the fear from Eamon and Sam, but only a sort of sadness from Dad.  
  
But I felt glee from Mom, and it was so strong that I almost turned and looked at her.  
  
What was she so happy about?  
  
This was unnerving. I would have to keep an eye on her.  
  
And so the days continued, my getting more people like Santa, my striking against the Yeerks only once more, so I wouldn't cause suspicion. I did mess with their wiring and computer system more often though - just annoyances, really, but they made a difference.  
  
Besides, what would I have done? Sometimes I looked around at the girls at school, and I was shocked at how shallow their lives were.  
  
I would never have been able to live like them, obsessing over a guy, or looks, or the new brand of shoes that were out.  
  
At least the kids who studied and got good grades knew they wanted to do something with their lives, and that school wasn't really everything, as a lot of people here seemed to think it was.  
  
And Dad and I grew closer, until I knew that he would never turn us out, no matter how many fights, for there were fights, and detentions and suspensions now. We got punished, of course, and I remembered Katherine hitting Rocky and how she wept because I cared enough to discipline her, and I knew how she felt.  
  
The weather grew colder, and I marveled at my new clothes that kept the cold out, and the warmth in, unlike any of my clothes before.  
  
But still, I remained wary, for I knew that if I ever relaxed, something terrible would happen that would throw my whole life into a new direction.  
  
But horrible things happened anyway, regardless of how watchful I was.  
  
For whoever controlled my life was determined to see me suffer.  


* * *

Author's Notes  
  
Sorry, I have no time now to respond to reviews, but I will respond next chapter to all. Thanks, and please review! 


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22:  
  
I typed quickly into the computer, erasing the schedules for the shuttle transport, just to cause a little confusion.  
  
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. WARNING. SECURITY HAS BEEN BREACHED.  
  
I cursed under my breath and then immediately reprimanded myself. Cursing was for fools, and I needed to be intelligent right now.  
  
I finished wiping out the last of the schedules, heedless of the fact that my fingerprints were all over the keypad.  
  
After all, they were Anna's fingerprints.  
  
There. All done.  
  
"Hey!"  
  
My head shot up, and I scrambled to the window and looked out at the blue sky, and then back to the Controller that was running up the hallway.  
  
I was on the third floor.  
  
I whipped off my shirt and held the holes shut and stepped out onto the ledge, closing the window shut. I then leaped, and caught myself on the ledge of the 1st floor window, which was open.  
  
There. Only one more floor to go.  
  
"Freeze."  
  
I froze, my shirt falling to the floor. Lucky I had an undershirt on.  
  
"Hold your hands up and face me."  
  
I slowly lifted my hands and turned to face the Controller.  
  
I almost gasped. I knew him! He was a boy from school - I had seen him a few times in passing. What was his name?  
  
"Walk towards me."  
  
I stepped forward until I realized that he wasn't armed, but was fumbling for a Dracon beam.  
  
I pulled out my weapon just as the Controller found his.  
  
We faced each other, hearts beating, Dracon beams aimed.  
  
"If you fire," I started carefully, "I will fire as I die, and then both of us will die."  
  
The boy's face grew ugly. "Then I will die for the Yeerk Empire."  
  
"Don't be a fool," I responded. "I know that you Yeerks live for advancement. What do you care for honor, especially posthumous honor?"  
  
He said nothing.  
  
"But," I continued, "If I fire, and you die, and you fire at me while you are dying, I will have died for a cause that I believe is worth dying in. But if you die for your cause, no glory is given to you, which is what you want, while I don't want glory, I want to die."  
  
I could tell from the look on his face that I had succeeded in confusing him.  
  
{This is Princess,} I thought-spoke to the receiver in my ear. {I am broadcasting a message to all contacts. I am by the window on the west side of the Sharing building. I need a car, a convertible to be stationed there in thirty seconds.}  
  
It crackled to life in my ear so that only I could hear. "Gotcha covered Princess."  
  
I mentally grinned. Jag, as one of richer contacts was called, was a typical "rich kid" looking for thrills. I found him trying to find them at a bar with a bottle of beer, and I coaxed him another way. Now he was one of my chauffeurs, which was what almost all my contacts were.  
  
I stepped backwards. "I am terrified of dying at a Dracon beam. I would rather fall out this window."  
  
The Controller grinned. Man, this Yeerk was dumb. Did he actually think that I would give away information like that?  
  
"Then step away," he told me.  
  
Uh, huh, I know what you're thinking. Yeah, she'll fall out the window, and I can stun her and get glory without dying.  
  
Unfortunately for him, he didn't know I had made arrangements already.  
  
I stepped backwards again, letting fear show obviously on my face. "Please don't shoot me, I, I – I'll jump!"  
  
One more step. And then another. And another. My back was to the window.  
  
"In position, Princess." Jag's voice whispered into my ear.  
  
"Are you an Andalite?" the Controller asked suddenly.  
  
I grinned, hopefully disarmingly. "Only - " my finger pressed the button to fire the Dracon beam, "half."  
  
As I said "half" I flipped backwards over the window, the Controller's Dracon beam hitting the side of my foot and burning it off.  
  
No matter. I was alive.  
  
WHUMP.  
  
I fell into a cushioned seat, my legs and arms still in the air.  
  
"You always have to make a dramatic exit, don't you Princess."  
  
"Step on it," I responded.  
  
We zoomed away as I demorphed to Maya and climbed into the front seat.  
  
I looked over at Jag as he nodded, mouthing the words to the song on the radio. Stifling a grin, I remembered what Santa had said about him. The only rich kid in the world willing to die for something other than his riches.  
  
And the only kid to name himself after his car. A Jaguar convertible.  
  
"Just you and me, baby, huh?" Jag said suddenly to me. "We could pass as girlfriend and boyfriend."  
  
I glanced at him. "Jag, I'm twelve and I'm in seventh grade. You're a junior."  
  
Jag shrugged. "So maybe I'm a pedophile."  
  
I grimaced, remembering the men that had raped Sandy. "Not even funny."  
  
"What, you have personal accounts of pedophiles or something?"  
  
I thought back to the slave camps in North Korea, and those guards who didn't seem to have any control over their sexual activities.  
  
They almost reminded me of American high schoolers – except with guns.  
  
"Something," I responded.  
  
Jag laughed, throwing his head back. "Princess, you are delicious."  
  
"Thanks," I responded.  
  
Jag pulled onto the main road as I tried to think of an excuse to tell my parents where my shirt went. Maybe I would just sneak in and get a shirt or something.  
  
Something. Definitely something.  
  
We stopped at a red light, when a car that looked suspiciously familiar pulled up next to us.  
  
Shoot.  
  
Mom rolled down her window, and looked at me, her face stamped with shock and relief and, yes, there was anger there too.  
  
"Maya Lancing. What are you doing – and who is that young man, and where is your shirt?!"  
  
I grinned the biggest smile I could. "This is Jag. Mom, meet Jag. Jag, meet Mom."  
  
Mom completely ignored my introduction and Jag as he tipped his baseball cap and said, "How do you do, ma'am."  
  
"Maya, you are in big trouble. You know how worried Dad and I were? You told us you were going to the mall with Jenny, and here we find you in the car of a stranger! We called Jenny and you weren't with her! Young lady, you are grounded for the next month. No mall trips, and you have to come straight home after school."  
  
Jag chuckled, and I glared at him.  
  
"Maya, get in this car right now."  
  
I stepped out into the intersection and opened the car door and stepped in.  
  
The light turned green.  
  
"See ya, Princess," Jag said with a smirk as he sped off.  
  
That boy.  
  
But I had other matters to deal with at hand.  
  
I opened my mouth to say, "I can explain," but Mom cut me off.  
  
"No. I don't want to hear any of your excuses or lies. Don't say a single word until we get home."  
  
I shut my mouth.  
  
I couldn't think of anything good to come up with, and by the time we pulled into the garage, I was desperate.  
  
Mom shooed everyone away, and led me into the living room where Dad was waiting.  
  
Sam grinned at me as I sat down apprehensively. "Oooh, Maya's in big trouble now."  
  
Mom gave him that look. "Samuel Lancing Jr. go upstairs immediately."  
  
Sam made a face, and then ran upstairs.  
  
But I remained frozen in shock.  
  
Samuel Lancing Jr. Samuel Lancing. Dr. Samuel Lancing.  
  
Why hadn't I remembered?  
  
Well, it had been two years or so since J.P. had told me his story, and I hadn't thought of it since then.  
  
I gazed at Dad, and saw Dr. Samuel Lancing.  
  
Mom walked over to the kitchen while Dad told me quietly, "Maya, you have a lot of explaining to do."  
  
I took a deep breath, and said, "J.P. says thank you."  
  
The world froze for a moment.  
  
Mom came rushing back with a kitchen knife in her hand and before I could blink it was at my throat.  
  
"I'll kill you before I get infested again," she whispered furiously. "I'll kill you!"  
  
"Helen," Dad remonstrated.  
  
Mom... had been a Controller?  
  
That is not the issue at hand, Maya. The issue is how to convince Mom not to slit your throat.  
  
"I'm not a Controller," I told her. "I'm an alien.  
  
"Explain," she told me, not moving the knife.  
  
I sighed. This was going to take a while.  
  
By the time I was done, Mom and Dad were both sitting on the couches across from me, listening intently.  
  
"So I started fighting the Yeerks," I finished. "Now, what's your story?"  
  
Mom smiled bitterly. "Not now. I'm not ready to tell you yet."  
  
I nodded, understanding. The only way I was able to tell everything was because I forced myself to become impassive about it.  
  
Dad gazed at me. "So all this time, you've been fighting the Yeerks?"  
  
I nodded. "Yeah, pretty much."  
  
His face broke into a wide grin. "I'll introduce you then."  
  
What?  
  
"To the Resistance."  
  
What in the world?  
  
"The Resistance," he explained, "is an organization made a few people here in this town, mostly escaped Controllers. We chat online about possible new Controllers, and then if there is a chance, we free them. No killing unless we have to, which has never happened so far, just freeing, like with J.P."  
  
I swallowed. "How long has this been going on?"  
  
Mom answered me. "Since the first Controller escaped. The Yeerks weren't as tight on security when they first invaded, and quite a few people escaped. All adults, now, which is why you have the unoriginal name of the Resistance, which people have used throughout the entire history of Earth."  
  
"You'll be our youngest member," Dad added. "Unless Oscar knows too?"  
  
I nodded.  
  
"We're very proud of you, Maya," Dad said softly. "We want you to keep fighting."  
  
There were tears in my eyes but I refused to let them fall. Instead, I grinned, and said, "So I'm not grounded anymore?"  
  
They shook their heads, smiling.  
  
Dad became businesslike, telling me some of the people that he knew personally that were in the Resistance. "I trust them with my freedom, and I am trusting you with theirs. You understand this?"  
  
"Yes, I do."  
  
He continued, and I memorized them all, adding them to my list of contacts.  
  
The Yeerks were going down.  
  
We were winding up when we heard Sam's door open and his voice call down, "Are you guys done?"  
  
Mom mouthed to me, don't tell him, and I nodded.  
  
"Yeah, we're done," Dad answered.  
  
Sam took the stairs two at a time, obviously eager to get down. "Good. I'm starving."  
  
We laughed, and Dad got up to start cooking dinner, while Mom continued talking to me.  
  
"There's a family that needs babysitting, and so I volunteered you, is that ok?"  
  
I grimaced. "I don't think I'm exactly the best baby-sitter around..." I mean, I taught my kids how to kill.  
  
Mom dismissed my fears with a wave. "Don't worry about it. You'll do fine. You'll need to watch Cyndi and Oscar, and two other girls. Their older sister is coming over here too, she's your age, actually."  
  
"Mom," I said, "Oscar really doesn't need a babysitter. He's been living on the streets for a while without one."  
  
"I know," she responded, "But I'd feel better if there was one."  
  
I shrugged. "Ok. So who are these people?"  
  
"I'm going out to dinner with their mother, Naomi Shulman, and we thought it would be good for you kids to get together. Eamon's on a school trip, and Sam is going out with Daddy just as a father-son outing. Behave yourself. You know the rules, and you know where everything is. Ok, honey?"  
  
"Ok. But who is this Naomi Shulman again?"  
  
"She's a lawyer that I work with. You know some defendants plead insanity in cases, and as a psychologist I'm called in frequently for questions."  
  
I nodded.  
  
"And her oldest goes to your school, I think. Do you know Rachel, what was her last name, Berenson?"  
  
I shook my head. "Why Berenson, though, and not Shulman?"  
  
"Her parents are divorced," Mom responded. "Don't bring it up. I know you aren't really well known for your tact, so just as a heads up."  
  
I laughed. "Ok, Mom, I'll be good."  
  
I waved goodbye about a half hour later as everyone left the house, and Rachel and her two sisters came in.  
  
The first thing I noticed was the fire in her eyes.  
  
Just like Solethi.

* * *

Review Responses  
  
I'm experimenting with lines because of the new QuickEdit thing in Document Manager, which is really cool, by the way. Although the bold and italics don't seem to work. And I got this chapter up really quickly! I just had this idea in my head and I wanted to write it out before I lost it. And, I'm aiming for 200 reviews for this chronicle, so please review! I still have quite a few chapters left, but the problem is that I update so quickly that most people just review the last chapter versus all of them. Special thanks to those who do review every chapter, no matter how quickly I update!  
  
Naric – I'm so sorry I missed responding to you before, I don't know why I missed it. But I'm responding now and here are more Yeerks!  
  
Hey – thank you for taking the time to review grins sarcastically  
  
Anonymous-cat – Thanks – the singing is something I might play with later, too. I love playing with themes, have you noticed? And yes, about the stealing, it was hard, and the killing is a habit that's hard to stop too even though the consequences are more severe. And I'm going to play with her dad and opening up to him, too. The next chapter is going to have Rachel in it. I know I usually end chapters and have the first paragraph in the next page be a summary, but this isn't the way it's going to be for the next one. And here's why Mom is acting suspicious. Or kind of why. I'm going to write a book about her later. I hope this chapter cleared up how the contacts help. I know that was a little confusing, but since I was going to explain it in the next chapter, I let it go. I hope this helped! And about Oscar, she was just saying, if you are going to fight, then kill him, don't play around like a cat and a mouse.  
  
Hell-Flame-Narf – she did pay the boy back, but I didn't have that scene. I'll have fight scenes in school, don't worry though. And about the potheads... that's a good idea, I'll see what I can do with it.  
  
Tabatha – Well, actually I'm having Jenny be one of the few nice girls in middle school, although you are right, they are far and in between. And I'm glad you review even if you don't write – your input if very much appreciated! And here's the next chapter about her mom, or kind of. I'm going to write a book about that later, too, like the book about Oscar.  
  
Custardpringle – Don't worry, I won't kill them. Eamon's graduating soon, and Cyndi will be just fine.  
  
Jumba-Jookiba – Yah (Spoiler Warning) she will go back to North Korea eventually. That's a good idea about the Yeerks, I'll think about that. And my fictionpress account is t Creator's Children, though, because I don't like the beginning.  
  
Birdie Num Num – Thanks for your review, and I hope you like this chapter, too! 

Review please!


	23. Chapter 23

Author's Note: Just in case people are getting confused about when this is - Maya and Rachel are in 7th grade, and I have the Animorphs meet Elfangor when they are 13 - in 8th grade. Just to clarify.  
  
Chapter 23:  
  
Rachel was looking at me expectantly through her blue eyes.  
  
"I've heard of you," she said suddenly. "You're the street girl, right?"  
  
I nodded, amused that the rumors racing around me hadn't been blown out of proportion.  
  
Rachel opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by her sisters squabbling over something.  
  
"Jordan! Sara!" Rachel shouted.  
  
Jordan turned to Rachel and pouted, "She started it."  
  
Sara was crying, tears streaming down her face as she said, "Jordan pulled my hair."  
  
Rachel said, "Jordan," with a warning tone, but Jordan justified her action by saying, "She hit me first!"  
  
"You took my Honey!" Sara countered tugging on a ratty green blanket in Jordan's arms.  
  
"That's because you were talking to it and wouldn't shut up," responded Jordan belligerently.  
  
I stared, bewildered. What was going on?  
  
Rachel glared coldly at Jordan. "Jordan, you are nine. Sara is five."  
  
"She's still annoying!" Jordan interjected.  
  
I was beginning to realize why normal kids needed babysitters.  
  
Rachel glared at Jordan and Jordan glared right back.  
  
They probably would have continued until one of them gave in, except Oscar trotted down the stairs just then.  
  
Both Rachel and Jordan looked up.  
  
And Jordan blushed.  
  
Oscar stopped short. "Jordan! What are you doing here?"  
  
Jordan was twisting her dark hair around her finger. "I... I..."  
  
I rescued her. "Rachel and I are supposed to be baby-sitting you, Jordan and Sara."  
  
Oscar raised an eyebrow. "Supposed to be?"  
  
Jordan giggled, very girlishly, and I noticed Oscar consciously trying to avoid looking at her.  
  
"You know each other?" Rachel asked skeptically.  
  
Oscar hesitated, and then nodded slowly, while Jordan bobbed her head up and down enthusiastically, like a cheerleader, going "Uh-huh!"  
  
"I'm hungry," Sara said suddenly.  
  
I looked at the clock. Six-fifteen.  
  
"Ok, everyone in the kitchen," I ordered. "We're gonna have pizza."  
  
"Yay! Pizza!" Sara shrieked as she ran into the kitchen, holding her Honey. Oscar continued down the stair, while listening to Jordan. Rachel turned to me.  
  
"They like each other."  
  
I shook my head. "Jordan may like Oscar, but he doesn't like her back."  
  
Rachel got a faint hurt look. "My sister's not bad looking."  
  
"No," I responded. "She's pretty, but she's younger than you, and no one's going to notice her after getting a look at you."  
  
Rachel's eyes narrowed and for second I wondered if I had been too blunt.  
  
Oh well, I didn't have any tact to start with, I'm not going to change now.  
  
"I hate it when people judge me on my looks," she burst out. "I'm not just pretty, you know. I'm smart; I do gymnastics, and a lot of things."  
  
I burst out laughing. "Are you hearing yourself? I'm not just pretty," I mimicked. "I'm smart, and I'm athletic, and oh yeah, modest, too."  
  
Rachel glared at me, and then grinned.  
  
"Ok, I like that," she admitted. "That you aren't scared to tell me the truth."  
  
"Why would I be afraid?"  
  
Rachel shrugged. "I dunno. They just are."  
  
I smiled. "Well, maybe if you blow up whenever someone tells you that you're pretty..."  
  
Rachel laughed, shaking her golden hair. "You're right. Just things bug me sometimes, and I get mad."  
  
In other words, you have no Control.  
  
Then again, you aren't a Nadar - why would you need Control?  
  
An hour later we were lying on our stomachs in the middle of the living room floor, talking, while keeping an eye on Cyndi and Sara playing House in the corner.  
  
Oscar and Jordan were who-knows-where.  
  
"... and then this guy was like 'I know you secretly want me but you think I'm too good for you.' I almost killed him right there!"  
  
I laughed, shaking my head. "He sounds just as arrogant as you."  
  
Rachel stuck her tongue out at me just as Jordan and Oscar walked in.  
  
"Hey," Jordan said, a little breathlessly. "Watcha doing?"  
  
"Bashing boys," Rachel responded. Jordan made a face, but not surprisingly Oscar just gazed at her.  
  
I don't think Nadar have genders, that's how much we control ourselves.  
  
Oh well. Too bad for Jordan!  
  
"Let's watch a movie," Jordan suggested, and I immediately said, "Something appropriate."  
  
"Like what, Beauty and the Beast?"  
  
Rachel, of course.  
  
"Yeah!" Cyndi shouted. "I wanna watch Beauty and Beast!" Sara began clambering about it with her while Jordan shook her head in disgust.  
  
"Disney films."  
  
At least the kids are happy.  
  
Just as Belle walked into the West Wing for the first time, the doorbell rang.  
  
I got up slowly while the others stayed, more or less riveted to the screen.  
  
One of my contacts was outside.  
  
I slipped outside, hissing, "You can't be here, people will see!"  
  
He stared at me with sunken eyes. "The Yeerks found out. My family's infested. I have no where else to go."  
  
He sounded exactly like when I had met him - depressed and hopeless.  
  
Too alike.  
  
Don't let on that you're suspicious, Maya. Play along.  
  
"Ok. I'll give you the address of one of the other guys."  
  
I heard the door open behind me and I thought, no!  
  
"Um, Maya? What's taking so long?" Rachel's voice said behind me.  
  
Great.  
  
"Nothing," I said, keeping my voice light, but not too fake. "Rachel, meet Mr. -" I drew a random name from history, "Churchill. He's a friend of my dad."  
  
Rachel's eyes had been doubtful, but they cleared up as she nodded, and went back inside.  
  
I turned back to the man, not even acknowledging my desire to sigh in relief.  
  
And turned to face a Dracon beam.  
  
I instantly thought spoke to Oscar, telling him of my situation. He responded into the receiver into my ear, saying he would sneak around back.  
  
"What do you want, Yeerk?"  
  
The Controller's eyes gleamed. "You are the only person who knows the name of all the contacts."  
  
I got it. Except I didn't know all the contacts, I just knew their code names and addresses of a few.  
  
But the host didn't know that, and so neither did the Yeerk.  
  
They also didn't know that I had a suicide pill in my mouth that was morphed into my gum. I would just need to morph it out, bite on it and have the poison that would burst out of the shell kill me.  
  
I could feel the capsule in my mouth, and I was ready to bite down if I needed to. If Oscar didn't come soon enough.  
  
Wait a second. Why am I bothering to kill myself for humans?  
  
I stared into the deep haunting pools of his eyes that were eager, except it was the Yeerk's eagerness.  
  
But I had seen his zeal, his own enthusiasm whenever there was a time I needed rescuing.  
  
I nodded, telling him that I knew all the contacts. He grinned widely.  
  
I was such a liar.  
  
And I was ready to kill him.  
  
"Please," I whispered, as he disintegrated to pieces before my eyes when Oscar shot the Dracon beam from the roof.  
  
And all I could do was to taste the capsule in my mouth and force myself not to bite down.  
  
I didn't bother to look up at the roof. Oscar would already be gone.  
  
I opened the door, joked with Rachel, tickled Cyndi, put both Cyndi and Sara to sleep, and stayed up talking to Rachel.  
  
And I acted normally.  
  
But inside tornadoes of turmoil whirled around lifting houses from the prairies of Kansas to the Land of Oz  
  
And I wondered, why did this man's death trouble me so much? It's not like I haven't seen death before.  
  
It wasn't until the next day that I figured it out.  
  
I was actually eating lunch that day, with Rachel and her friend Cassie, who was black.  
  
"You're friends?" I asked incredulously when Rachel introduced her. "But you're different races."  
  
There was an awkward pause before Rachel bluntly said, "You didn't act like a racist last night."  
  
I searched my mind for the definition of racist, and came up with: a person with a prejudiced belief that one race is superior to others.  
  
And judging from Rachel's tone, this was an unfavorable thing to be.  
  
But... why? All the Andalites I ever met were racist.  
  
"You mean it's wrong to be racist on Earth?"  
  
They looked at me quizzically. "Yeah, no duh, it's wrong," Rachel said while Cassie questioned, "What do you mean, on Earth?"  
  
Shoot.  
  
"Oh," I said, blushing as if I had said something stupid (which I had). "You know, I came from North Korea, and America is so different, that I tend to call just America Earth, or anywhere outside of North Korea Earth."  
  
They bought it, but only because nobody in America really knows what North Korea is like.  
  
"So," I continued, "It's ok if you're not racist?"  
  
"Duh. It's wrong to be racist," Rachel said.  
  
Cassie gently added, "It used to be ok to be racist, but now most people aren't anymore. Or they shouldn't, anyway."  
  
I nodded, almost in awe. The fact that different races could be friends, freely...  
  
Maybe, if it had been that way on the Andalite Home World, I might have been friends with an Andalite.  
  
No. I immediately rejected that thought. The Andalites were vile, despicable, death-worthy scum.  
  
"So, you're from North Korea?" started Cassie, trying to make pointless polite conversations like all caring people did.  
  
"Yeah," I answered. "I'm only half though, because my dad was probably an American soldier left behind after the Korean War, and my mother was who knows what. Crazy, at least, to sleep with an American, and crazy not to kill me at birth."  
  
I had fabricated this story to explain how I was half-Asian.  
  
"Wow," Rachel breathed. "I mean, that's horrible, but it's like, you're different."  
  
I laughed. I couldn't help it. I was different? Did she know how many times I had been persecuted for being different?  
  
"What's wrong?" Cassie asked, wrinkling her brow.  
  
I started to shake my head, saying nothing when her words hit me. What's wrong?  
  
The contact that died last night.  
  
His entire family had been infested.  
  
They might know that he had gone to me. Would probably know.  
  
And I couldn't leave anything related to the Yeerks up to chance.  
  
I got up. "I have to go."  
  
"What?" They looked up, startled.  
  
I pushed my chair away and began to run, without bothering to answer.  
  
I was in deep, deep trouble.  
  
Review Responses  
  
Cliffhanger! Hah hah hah! I'll update soon, don't worry.  
  
custardpringle – yes, they are adopted cousins. I will bring them up later with grand plans, if only for your benefit, and sanity. grins  
  
Tabatha – yup! Rachel is in the story. And so is Cassie now. I think that's all I'm gonna introduce for now, but I'm just weaving a tapestry and I don't know what thread I'll use next!  
  
naric – Thank you! Your review helped me a lot in direction. Rachel you already saw, Cassie, yes, and the others I'll put in later.  
  
Hell-Flame-Narf – if you want changes, if you like them, you'll like the next chapter even more!  
  
Anonymous –cat – Thanks! The action scene was in my head after mowing the lawn so I decided to type it up! And you're right about Maya and Ax, and here's some more Animorph interaction, even though they aren't Animorphs yet.  
  
Birdie num num – here's the next chapter, and yes she meets Rachel and Cassie! 


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24:  
  
I slipped out of a back door and raced to catch a bus.  
  
I was gonna make another visit to the Sharing.  
  
The plan was simple enough. Go in, erase all information pertaining to my contacts and the Resistance, write a program to track any new info about us, and create a virus that would delete that info under the guise of a security check.  
  
I finished writing the program in my head, and ducked into a bush in back of the Sharing building and morphed to Anna.  
  
Using her thin pale fingers I lifted myself onto a ground floor window ledge pausing only for a moment to fiddle with the lock and pull the screen away and push up the window.  
  
I was in, but the Yeerk's had wised up to my arrivals, and an alarm started ringing.  
  
I raced to the nearest terminal, and began typing madly, trying to desperately to hack into the security levels before anyone arrived.  
  
I wrote the program with the virus and activated it. It began running and came up with...  
  
What? No releases?  
  
"We thought this would bring you here."  
  
I turned slowly to see a dozen Dracon beams aimed at me.  
  
Why did this always happen?  
  
There was no way I could talk myself out of this.  
  
What had I done wrong?  
  
Figure it out later, Maya.  
  
I dove out the open window and rolled, the startled Controllers firing where I had been seconds before.  
  
I hugged the wall, sneaking around to the back of the building where the garbage dumps were.  
  
And I realized that I was trapped, trapped with no way out.  
  
I don't know what made me do the next thing I did, but I knew it would save me from infestation.  
  
I picked up a rusty knife and hacked off my ear, twisting the knife into it, almost screaming from the pain. I did it to the other ear until blood was streaming down the sides of my face, mixing with the tears that I had shed from the sheer pain.  
  
It took ten seconds to mutilate myself so that I couldn't be infested, and the Yeerks came for me just as I was finishing.  
  
I turned towards them, my bloodied knife in my hand.  
  
"Ok," I told them, even though I couldn't hear myself with destroyed ear drums. "I'm ready."  
  
Then, dizzy from loss of blood, and weak from pain, I did something I never thought I'd ever do.  
  
I fainted.  
  
I woke up in a dimly lit cabin, and with my eyes closed I assessed my situation with the rest of my senses.  
  
The smell was a sickening sludgy smell, wafting through the walls and permeating through everything. I could taste blood in my mouth, but that was no surprise. As for feeling, I could feel chains twisted around my arms, cutting off my blood circulation quite effectively.  
  
I didn't bother to hear, since my ears were non-existent, but a booming thought voice sounded that would have made me freeze if I wasn't pretending to be unconscious.  
  
{... So Sinos 4356 didn't tell anyone where this rebel lived?}  
  
There was a pause where I assumed a human Controller was answering the Andalite. My mind was racing at the thought.  
  
Because I knew that voice. I had first heard it in my mother's hirac delest, and I had dreamed about it often enough.  
  
My Andalite father.  
  
No. Samuel Lancing was my father, not this alien who had married my mother just to sleep with her and then had run off to marry a pure-bred Andalite.  
  
{WHY NOT!} I heard the Andalite who was not my father roar. {Did Sinos think he was immortal and couldn't die!} Then right away he added, {Wake the girl up and infest her.} A pause, then the Andalite shouted, {Then torture her until she tells us everything she knows!}  
  
I grimly smiled, thinking, you want to know everything I know Yeerk? That'll take a long time.  
  
So the Yeerk in my contact hadn't told anyone. And they knew they couldn't infest me.  
  
Now was the time. The time to pay for all the murders I had committed. A type of purifying.  
  
I could hardly wait.  
  
Five hours later I had changed my mind.  
  
An hour into it they got nothing but screams. After all, I couldn't hear them, and I had been through beatings before in North Korea.  
  
But when he took over, I began to give.  
  
I thanked whoever controlled the universe that the Yeerks didn't have the sophisticated torture technology with them here on Earth at the moment. Losing my mind wasn't a happy thought, and neither was the idea of an identity crisis. I had enough of a problem with my identity, being a half- breed, and my genetic makeup being two humans.  
  
I remembered my loved ones and they defined me and named me throughout the session.  
  
But it wasn't enough, and I knew that if the torture continued, the love of humans and of Elemaki could not hold me.  
  
And after me, I knew the Yeerks would bring their new equipment of torture that would wrench people psychologically.  
  
Two hours, and I began giving false scraps of information, names like J.P. who was already gone. Anything to stop them. I began babbling names, a stream of names, with wild stories, and then for one blissful hour they put me in a Ramonite box to wait in agonizing insecurity.  
  
However, they didn't know me.  
  
I lay down and slept for that hour.  
  
Needless to say the Yeerk, Visser Three, wasn't pleased.  
  
I listened to him roaring and lashing out at everybody and me, and wondered, is Alloran really in there?  
  
Two more hours where I told him more stories, and then I began reminiscing aloud about North Korea and the streets until they knocked me until I could barely breathe.  
  
Five hours. I was a mess, I had paid for my sins, and I hadn't told any information except for what was useless or false.  
  
I might have been proud of myself if I hadn't felt like I was dying.  
  
Besides the underlying throbbing of: You haven't paid. This is just a start, over and over again until you are dead, for only with blood can blood be repaid.  
  
I crumpled to the floor after telling them what they wanted to hear. I knew they would go and check the information I had given, and when they found out I had lied...  
  
But I didn't count on the Visser's sadistic nature.  
  
{Let her die slowly,} he ordered. {Put her in the dumpster and let the trucks carry her body away and cover it in a landfill.}  
  
I felt myself lifted up by harsh hands, and they dragged me outside, heedless of the cuts and scrapes and bruises that were on me.  
  
I remained limp as I was thrown into one of the garbage dumps and covered in the reeking trash.  
  
I lay there, hidden, with no energy to do anything but concentrate on breathing. The garbage truck rattled by a little later, and I was dumped in.  
  
The impact shook me up, and nanometer by nanometer I made my way to the surface.  
  
It wasn't steady, not by a long shot. I forced up an inch, and then rested for fifteen minutes, on and on until my head broke the surface through a bleeding trail.  
  
Slowly, painfully, I gulped in air that burned my lungs, and just as slowly I closed my only working eye and concentrated on morphing the ear piece into my ear.  
  
It had morphed with the Anna morph into Maya, and it took almost all my energy to get it back.  
  
And when I did get it back, I radioed Oscar.  
  
I whispered to him where I was, and he told Dad and they came for me.  
  
Daddy came for me. Came to heal the wounds my father had inflicted.  
  
No, not my father, I reminded myself. My begetter.  
  
There is a difference, many times, from a male who begets you and your father. And also the female who bears you and your mother.  
  
I was lucky to have the female who bore me to be a true mother, but not so lucky with her husband.  
  
I saw through my one eye the gray Lexis SUV drive up behind the garbage truck, and saw Oscar leap to the garbage truck and then felt him gently pull me off and carry me to the ground.  
  
I didn't know he was that strong.  
  
Oscar carried me into the trees, and Daddy followed slowly, tapping on his breaks.  
  
"Demorph, Maya," he whispered.  
  
I was disconcerted for a moment. Maya? I knew who she was - she was me - but what did she look like?  
  
I heard Daddy catch his breath as he stood over me, and then Oscar shook his head gently and said "no" when eyestalks shot out of my head.  
  
And he and Daddy coached me into exchanging beaten patch of skin to my clearer half-Asian skin.  
  
I was quiet the entire ride home wishing that wounds of the heart and mind were as easy to fix as those of the body.  
  
But they never were.  
  
Mom was waiting for us as we came in.  
  
"Oh Maya," she whispered. I stared back at her with blank, dull eyes.  
  
"I want to be alone," I heard myself say distinctly.  
  
I walked upstairs and closed my door, staring at my bed.  
  
I knew the thing most people would do was to run across to the bed and sob on it.  
  
But the bed was a stranger to me.  
  
I stared as my bed sat up and began talking to me.  
  
"It's nice to meet you," it said, a voice coming from a mouthless dead object.  
  
"It's nice to meet you too," I responded, and extended my hand for the bed to shake, like a polite American would.  
  
The bed extended a corner and shook my hand. "So, you're in middle school?"  
  
I nodded.  
  
Then in the exact same tone the bed asked, "So, you're a serial killer who deserves death but can't get it?"  
  
I smiled, "That's exactly right. But I just got tortured, so maybe that counts for a little."  
  
The bed shook what would have been its head. "Maya, Maya, you haven't paid. This is just a start, over and over again until you are dead, for only with blood can blood be repaid."  
  
The bed repeated word for word what I had felt while being tortured.  
  
And I screamed, as the bed curled up at rushed at me, threatening to crush me, but I stayed rooted to the spot for only with blood can blood be repaid.  
  
I woke up with my head in Daddy's lap, and with Mommy holding my hands.  
  
They were loving me.  
  
And I knew, that if I had grown up in a family that loved me, that had stayed alive, I wouldn't have killed.  
  
Genetics are almost nothing. Sure, some people may be fatter because of genes, or have big feet because of genes, but in the end...  
  
It's circumstance that counts. And attitude towards life, most of all, which you choose.  
  
And I had chosen to be bitter and hating and vengeful.  
  
So even as they and everyone loved me, I knew it wasn't enough.  
  
"You haven't paid. This is just a start, over and over again until you are dead, for only with blood can blood be repaid."  
  
It would ring in my head until the day I paid or until I was forgiven.  
  
And who would ever forgive me?  
  
If anyone actually could.

* * *

Review Responses

* * *

Yay! I got this up on the same day! Hurray for history class! And, DH L'Orange is back!  
  
Birdie num num – Thanks for reviewing so quickly! I hope this satisfies you!  
  
Hell-Flame-Narf – Yay! Thank you for telling me that it sounds like the book. I thought Rachel sounded a little out of character, mostly because I haven't read the books in a while. I'm glad you kept reading this, I have grand plans!  
  
DH L'Orange – Hurray! throws flowers in the air I missed you! hugs DH I'm so glad you're back! And yes, I'm glad you like how the story is going. Your review covered a lot of ground! And about the Nadar, I think that I will restate the Nadar thing later, pretty soon, maybe a chapter or three later. And about becoming a Nadar, it really depends on the person. Some people might break under after killing one person, kind of like Oscar when he killed the pearl fisher. Maya though, cut off an Andalite's tail, killed the drunkard, killed the guards, and then became a Nadar. I have another upcoming book that will explore that idea more. And I'm glad you like the contacts idea. After this chapter Maya going to be slowing down the activity against the Yeerks, as you will see in the next chapter, mostly because she can't take the stress after being tortured. And don't worry, the Yeerk that infested Churchill didn't tell anyone, so they are ok. And special prize for guessing that! Yes, Jenny King is related to Erek. I know that she isn't in the books, but then again, neither is Maya. She has a major part in my third chronicle, so good guess! And yes, I hope you catch up too, I really missed your input. If you weren't there by the end of this chronicle I was going to put out an ad asking where you were. grins And thanks for the compliment about my writing style. I've been working on it, and I hope to transfer it to my originals as well. I think I'm going to write an original based on this fic – one of my reviewers gave me that idea – and just call it "The Nadar", but place it in an alternate universe. I'll probably finish this fic first so I can see. And again, I'm so happy that you're back!  
  
So this one is a little shorter, but review anyway? Please? And the last chapter, too since I got both up quickly? Pretty please? 


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25:  
  
I insisted on going to school the next day.  
  
"No," I told Mom, shaking my head, "I can't let myself get soft. Besides, the Yeerks can put things together. If I don't show up right after Anna babbled about Korea? I am Amerasian."  
  
She didn't like it, and neither did Dad, but I had my way. Sam helped, unwittingly, by yelling that if I didn't hurry he'd leave in his car without me.  
  
Which Eamon responded to with, "It's my car!"  
  
Dad yelled to him, "It's my car that you are borrowing."  
  
I slipped out amidst the shouting and even got to school on time.  
  
Normal day. Read whatever I could get my hands on during math, resist the urge to shoot the teacher because I knew so much more than her, pay attention in science since it was Earth science and I actually was interested. Then Spanish, where I read again, not letting anyone know that I was fluent.  
  
I did have a translating chip, which was a significant advantage.  
  
My fourth class was history, again about Earth, which fascinated me. I had lunch, which I skipped as usual, heading towards the library.  
  
Normally I would have gone downtown, but I was going to keep the anti-Yeerk activity on a low level.  
  
I had gym after lunch which was spent drilling my body. I had joined a Tae Kwon Do dojang and although the discipline was pretty lax, compared to the Andalite army, it still was pretty good.  
  
By the time I walked into English, which I did pay attention to, I was trembling.  
  
I was good at acting, but what do you do when you walk past so many Controllers, many of which had beaten you the night before?  
  
I really needed to get out of here.  
  
I looked up at the teacher, saw that it was a sub, and walked out.  
  
I dumped my stuff into Jenny's locker, and then fixed it so no one else could break into it like I had.  
  
I wandered through the halls, running my hand against the walls, the lockers, and made my way slowly outside through a small side door.  
  
Squinting against the sun, I managed to see an outline of a tree and impulsively began climbing it.  
  
I reached higher, hand over hand until my head poked out of the leafy brush.  
  
I looked out at the school grounds, and saw some kids cutting class, kids involved in major PDA, kids smoking pot, kids playing sports, kids living, some of them Controllers, some of them not...  
  
I began to sing, a child's nonsense song that Eun-hee had taught me what seemed like a lifetime ago.  
  
Mr. Elephant's nose is his hand,  
  
If you give him a cracker, he will eat it with his nose.  
  
My voice trailed off uncertainly as my eyes stared across the city.  
  
And I began sobbing, uncontrollably, shaking so much that I half-slid, half- fell down the tree, and at its base I knelt, weeping, without quite knowing why.  
  
All I knew was that something was wrong.  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry..."  
  
I heard a voice above me but couldn't seem to stop crying.  
  
"Are you ok?" The voice asked again and this time I looked up, tears still streaming down my face to see a Hispanic boy looking down at me with a concerned face.  
  
Half white though, I could tell from his lighter colored skin.  
  
Like me.  
  
I knew the typical American thing to do would be to nod and stay silent, but I was mad at America who was blind and couldn't see what the Sharing was hiding behind the guise of tolerance and acceptance for all.  
  
Don't blame others, Maya, or you'll never stop. It's your fault.  
  
But why should I follow American rules of etiquette?  
  
I shook my head.  
  
Taken aback, the kid tried a smile. "And what would a pretty girl like you be so sad about? Boyfriend trouble?"  
  
I actually started laughing through my tears, unable to think of a sarcastic, witty reply. The boy stood there, uncertain of what to do.  
  
Finally I stood, wiping away my tears, smiling. "No, I've never had a boyfriend."  
  
"You want one?" the boy shot back, grinning even more widely.  
  
I decided to smack him for being so forward, but didn't have to because someone shoved him into me.  
  
I stepped backwards, startled, while the shover drawled, "Marco, talking to the only girl who doesn't look down to see you."  
  
"Yeah," one of the other boys smirked, "And it's the street girl."  
  
I noticed Marco's cheeks flush but all I really saw was...  
  
Two boys, bullying another.  
  
And I really needed a fight.  
  
I stepped forward and punched the first boy straight in the nose, and almost shrieked with delight when the red, red blood came down.  
  
"Drake," the other boy called out in alarm as I launched myself at him, reveling in it all.  
  
I heard something crack, rolled away, and began kicking wildly, hitting anywhere, knowing how Oscar felt, to give pain, to have that power...  
  
That was what these boys felt.  
  
But I couldn't stop, no, wouldn't, because I loved it. I was in pain from the torture, and I could take it out on others, so why shouldn't I?  
  
Because it's wrong. Because it's wrong. Because it's wrong.  
  
As if in response, I saw an arm lift and hit me in the mouth, and I tasted the blood and -  
  
Marco jerked me to my feet by my arm, and I took stock of the situation. Two boys on the ground, I had a bloody lip and some bruises.  
  
"That was the most careless fight I have ever fought," I announced, and then walked out of Marco's grasp and back into the school.  
  
I reached up to touch my lip as I turned the corner and ran smack dab into Mr. Chapman.  
  
"Maya," he said, somewhat angrily. "What are you doing out of class?"  
  
I started the tears up, whimpering about some boys who had hit me. I showed him to them, and noticed Marco was gone already.  
  
Drake and whoever claimed I was lying, but they were boys, and so Mr. Chapman believed me when I told him they had been fighting and had stumbled onto me.  
  
I didn't play up the helpless girl act too much because it wasn't me, but hinted that I was PMSing majorly, which was a lie, since I didn't even have my period yet, but no one knew that.  
  
I got away scot-free, except Chapman warned me that one more cut and I would have a suspension.  
  
As if I cared.  
  
I visited the nurse's office, eager to get out of the rest of school, and talked to Ms. Gery while she tended my lip.  
  
"So you're the young street girl who has been sending everyone to me," she commented while cleaning my cut. I grunted in response.  
  
"Well, if it makes you feel any better while you're in detention for fighting, I really appreciate it that you are giving them what they deserve."  
  
I turned to stare at her, and she laughed at the surprised expression on my face.  
  
"Give 'em all you got, Maya," she told me.  
  
I looked at her curiously. Another contact, maybe...  
  
Maya, people got infested because of you, you just got tortured, and you're already jumping back in?  
  
"Ms. Gery," I asked suddenly. "Are you getting married?"  
  
"Yeah, I am, actually," she responded, showing surprise at my question. "I'm twenty-seven, I'm done with med school, and I'm engaged. Why do you ask?"  
  
That settled it. No way would this woman risk her baby getting hurt by Yeerks.  
  
"Just curious," I told her, and that was it.  
  
But we talked more, just becoming friends, this twenty-seven year old woman who was getting married and having children while I...  
  
Why couldn't I get married?  
  
The question bothered me as I sat down at the dinner table, joked with Sam, laughed at Oscar, talked with Eamon, teased Cyndi, and conversed with Dad, and helped Mom.  
  
This was a family, wasn't it? Why couldn't I have one?  
  
But the next day, when I saw the kids whose parents beat them so they were too terrified to tell, when I saw the latchkey kids and the ones whose parents didn't care, I knew why.  
  
What kind of mother would I be, I, who was a serial killer? A murderer? I would never be able to raise children the way they should be raised, I, who taught kids how to kill.  
  
And I wouldn't bring kids into this world if I couldn't raise them.  
  
It was pretty simple, actually. I wouldn't do anything I couldn't do.  
  
That philosophy failed me more times than any other philosophy in my life had.  
  
I began feeling a little better the next day. And the next, and the next. The school year ended, and summer began, and I still didn't fight the Yeerks. I couldn't. The school year began, with both Oscar and me in the same middle school, and I still didn't fight the Yeerks.  
  
Finally, a Friday came. I was glad, as I could rest over the weekend. Daddy had suggested that I start a garden to help, and it had worked. I woke up early every morning to tend to it, and it did soothe me to be helping something live instead of killing it. Although today was pouring, so I couldn't really do anything except sit and look at it.  
  
I had called all my contacts and told them before the summer had started to lay low for a while, without bothering to give details. The less they knew, the less they could tell the Yeerks.  
  
I guess I was still looking for fights, because I got into them almost every single day. Just a few punches, a shove into the locker, that kind of thing. I was still blaming my period, which was getting quite handy.  
  
I ate with Cassie and Rachel most of the time now. They had been curious about where I had gone that one day, but weren't nosy about it, which was one aspect of human culture that I appreciated. Andalites and Elemaki, in general, are very blunt.  
  
Sometimes I wondered about the Elemaki, the inferior race on the Andalite Home World. I doubted that they had been exterminated yet, since a century hadn't passed yet, and it would take at least that much time to get rid of all the Elemaki. And then there were those on the Island, like Saraswati, and her family. They were probably dead from air raids, but you never know, I mean I had survived.  
  
And sometimes I wondered about Solethi, the Andalite Nadar who had helped me so much, and who had taught me about the Nadar, so that I could know myself, even if I wasn't a very nice thing to know.  
  
And Kyrani, too, the pretty almost Andalite who had inadvertently given me the determination to survive.  
  
And I had survived, hadn't I? I had taken a short cut, jumping twenty-six years into the future where the Elemaki where probably all slaves on the mainland, with just a few villages left.  
  
I remembered all the faces of the Andalites who had hurt me too, since I was going back for revenge. Xelaman, the Andalite who had beaten my brother, especially. And the thousands of other Andalite who I had cursed, and who would die, would bow or die.  
  
Cassie seemed to know something was wrong with me, and she seemed to know that I didn't want to talk about it, either. Rachel was oblivious, but still she kept the conversation going while Cassie listened and I looked.  
  
After lunch was over I wandered over to the gym, restless once more. My blood had been stirred up by the fights that I was in constantly, and since there weren't any Yeerks to take it out on, I was looking for it in school.  
  
And it came.  
  
I heard laughter and shouts amid the pouring rain, and bored, I wandered over to the crowd.  
  
Two boys, whose names I didn't think I knew were shoving another boy with dirty blond hair into one of those huge lockers that didn't seem to have any purpose.  
  
Then again, I really didn't pay attention to any of the sports that were offered here.  
  
I pushed my way through the laughing crowd, as the boy with dirty blond hair hit the locker with his side and stumbled away.  
  
I turned and faced the first bully, and stuck out my hand. "Hi, my name is Maya. And yours?"  
  
Being the idiot that he was, he shook my hand, responding, "My name is Tap- Tap."  
  
I grinned. "Nickname, huh? What's your real name?"  
  
He growled at me, and in one fluid motion I pulled him over my hip and threw him to the ground.  
  
WHUMP.  
  
It sounded like the time I had fallen from the Sharing building into Jag's convertible.  
  
I turned to the other boy, who I thought was named Andy.  
  
He didn't deserve to share the same name as Drew.  
  
I spun around backwards with a hook kick, excerpt aimed for his head so that I wouldn't kill him. He slammed into the locker, and was out as if I had aimed a Dracon beam at him and stunned him.  
  
I turned to the crowd next, and told them off for standing and watching as if it were an amusement show, all very politely and in an indoor voice, while pretending to not realize that Tap-Tap was creeping up behind me.  
  
Just before he leapt on me I swung backwards with tightened fists, breaking his nose. The blood spurted everywhere, and he cried out, but instead of holding his nose and moaning, he jumped on me anyway, taking me by surprise.  
  
Or as surprised as a Nadar can get.  
  
He landed a knee in my stomach, but I tightened my muscles so I could take the blow, and then side kicked him. He withstood it, and called to a couple of friends for help.  
  
"Oh, need help to fight a girl," I snarled, while mentally taking note of his friends who were all really big.  
  
I could kill them all, but if I wanted to just hurt them, I would get hurt too.  
  
I took another count, took a double-take when Andy shook his head and unsteadily got up, and then I grabbed the boy's hand and dragged him down the gym out a door into the pouring rain.  
  
The door slammed shut behind us and I yanked the boy around a corner and then giggled when I heard Tap-Tap and his friends run out into the rain only to curse and run right back into the gym.  
  
I turned to the boy, and smiled. "Hi, my name is Maya. And yours?"  
  
He looked at me warily, since I had asked Tap-Tap that exact same question before I had thrown him, but I shook my head. "I won't hurt you."  
  
I don't know if that was enough or not, but he almost imperceptibly shrugged, and then said, "My name is Tobias."  
  
I nodded. "Hi Tobias." Taking a quick look at the rain pouring down all around us and at our own soaked bodies, I said, "I really don't want to go back in there, and I don't think you want to either."  
  
He shook his head.  
  
"So let's cut class, and go to the mall. Will your parents care?"  
  
His words couldn't have spoken more clearly than his demeanor and face had. I don't have parents, and the person who is my legal guardian won't care.  
  
"So, do you stay with a foster family or a relative?"  
  
The look on his face was priceless.

* * *

Review Responses  
  
Sorry I haven't updated in a while! But Nadar Chronicles Two is finishing up! And not the way you think it is, just to let you know, even though I don't know what you are thinking.  
  
Anonymous-cat – Yeah, about the bed, I was thinking more that Maya was hallucinating, that the bed that was foreign to her was speaking back her thoughts. I wanted to show the effects of torture, which are shown in this book as well, since a lot of other books show how they bravely withstood it and then went on with happy normal lives, while it turned Maya more into her bad lifestyle.  
  
DH L'Orange – Thank you! And I didn't do that much with torture mostly because (SPOILER WARNING) I am going to include a very lovely nice little book where it happens again. But much later. And I'm glad you liked the part about Maya's parents. And also, I said she couldn't change because I wanted to show the affects of torture, like I told A-cat. And about Visser 3 being Maya's dad, only Maya knows that and she's going to keep it a secret for now. And thanks for adding me to you author alert list! does happy dance. Here's the update!  
  
Custardpringle – don't worry, you won't be just "playing" house pretty soon...  
  
Birdie num num – Well, if you really want to know if Alloran finds out, tell me and I put it in my next review responses with a spoiler warning before hand. And the Jerry Springer was funny, except Maya technically isn't illegitimate; cuz Saranai married Alloran before he did her. Although that does make him an adulterer for marrying later... Oh well, Alloran will be forgiven. Maybe.  
  
Tabatha – Thanks for your review! And I'm glad you like this story enough to keep up with it. It's going to continue for a long long while. And I think I might have mentioned before that I'm going to take the main theme and plot and put it in an original or something like that. And the bed talking to her was cool to right. And you're right; the torture is getting to her. And don't worry, your reviews are fine, and welcome! Here's the update.  
  
Hell-Flame-Narf – Thanks for your review – glad you liked that chapter and hope you like this one!  
  
Spica P.I – That's awesome! high fives Spica Actually, I'm half-Korean half Caucasian. And I'm glad you like this story! And also, just making sure, did you read the chronicles before this one, Nadar Chronicles 1 and Elemaki Chronicles? This one makes a lot more sense if you read those first. And thanks for your review!  
  
Hey – I'm writing some more, Oh master, and I wish for you to beta this one, oh excellent one. 


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26:  
  
We were laughing, this quiet Tobias and I, as we walked through the mall.  
  
We had been there for a little over an hour, and school was just letting out. The rain had stopped too, and the sky was clearing up nicely, although it would get dark soon.  
  
"So, who do you live with?" he asked me after I finished telling him a story about life on the street.  
  
"With foster parents," I answered. "And you?"  
  
He grimaced slightly. "I go back and forth between an uncle and aunt who live on opposite coasts."  
  
"Siblings?" I guessed.  
  
He nodded.  
  
"What happened to your parents?"  
  
He shrugged slightly. "My dad left when I was too young to remember, and my mom lost it afterwards, or something, so..."  
  
His voice trailed off while I said, "That's kinda like what my dad did except my mom -"  
  
I stopped; horrified that I had revealed that the past I had been telling everyone wasn't true.  
  
I couldn't get comfortable with anyone, not this boy, who would be the most likely to turn to the Sharing in his loneliness.  
  
"It's ok; you don't have to tell me, I know sometimes it's hard."  
  
He took my breath away. What compassion! Consideration! I would have never bothered. His misunderstanding was very well placed.  
  
"You don't seem to find it hard," I commented.  
  
He shrugged, a human expression I found fascinating. So many things are said with a shrug...  
  
"You, I don't know, you just act normal, like it's no big deal, like I'm not weird."  
  
I smiled. "Well, I'm not really the right person to judge whether a person's life is weird or not."  
  
Tobias smiled back, and we would have continued sitting there like a pair of idiots since I couldn't think of anything to say, but I felt a hand on my shoulder and spun backwards, the other way.  
  
Never turn the way someone expects you to when they tap you on the shoulder. You turn and plant your face into their fist.  
  
I turned.  
  
Santa.  
  
My brain froze, for one long moment, but I had long since trained my body to act normally under stress.  
  
"What do you want?" I hissed, furious that he had come. The Yeerks, I didn't want to be tortured again, this wasn't safe -  
  
"Your dad is in danger," he whispered to me. "Not them, though."  
  
Daddy was in trouble, but it wasn't the Yeerks, I translated.  
  
I got up, and said, "I'm sorry Tobias, I have to go."  
  
I left him there, and climbed behind Santa on his motorcycle, and sped off into the darkening evening.  
  
I morphed to Anna in the shadows and Santa dropped me off by a bar where an ambulance was in front of.  
  
I half-ran, half-trotted over as the ambulance drove off, sirens blaring. I turned to ask a passerby what had happened, and then realized that I was in my Anna morph, which had been on TV about a year ago for murdering the Sharing lady.  
  
But I didn't need to ask anything, because a bystander was speaking loudly about the event. "... first there was this girl, a young woman, and a man was dragging her into the bar. Before I could blink, there was a middle aged man by them, at the entrance of the bar, and then inside. I started to go in when the woman burst out and bowled me over. I looked in and saw the second man lying on the floor, with blood around and on him, so I called the police and..."  
  
I walked away towards the bar. I had heard enough.  
  
Daddy, why did you have to be a hero and leave me?  
  
I took one step forward towards the raving lights and harsh laughter and stepped into a mist so heavy that for a moment I thought I had lost consciousness.  
  
LITTLE NADAR.  
  
It wasn't the Ellimist, I could tell that much.  
  
YOU OWE ME.  
  
My mind flashed back to the time I had been crashing down to Earth, and how the ship had miraculously slowed down, and that booming voice...  
  
"I am here to pay that debt," I answered, my voice steady and clear.  
  
I AM CRAYAK.  
  
I saw a vision of a giant flaming eye, red, with machinery.  
  
YOU HAVE FIFETEEN MINUTES TO KILL ALL OF THEM. YOU WILL ESCAPE.  
  
My right arm began burning, and I looked down at it.  
  
A glowing C was printed just under my right wrist.  
  
IT WILL GO AWAY AFTER YOU PAY YOUR DEBT, NOT WHEN YOU MORPH.  
  
I stepped backwards, back out of the mist, and looked up into the open door of bar.  
  
YOU HAVE FIFETEEN MINUTES TO KILL ALL OF THEM.  
  
I walked forward, not trembling.  
  
I slipped into the bar, sliding my hand into my belt that a Dracon beam hung from, inside my pants.  
  
"You gettin' ready to strip down?" a bum slurred, sloshing his drink.  
  
I flashed Anna's beautiful white teeth, and tossed her red curls, and then pulled out the Dracon beam and shot him.  
  
Tssewww!  
  
I don't remember clearly what happened afterwards, but I remember that there was no blood. I used the Dracon beam as they screamed and dove for cover.  
  
I killed them all.  
  
All, except for one man, who looked terrified, terribly alone in a bar where even the bartenders had disintegrated.  
  
"Please don't kill me," he begged.  
  
My father would have never pleaded the same.  
  
I aimed my Dracon beam at him and fired, but no lancing red beam came out.  
  
Shoot. It was out of energy.  
  
Oh well. I would milk this for all it was worth.  
  
I strode towards him as he cowered, and spoke to him.  
  
"I leave you alive so you can tell them that Anna the Avenger has returned."  
  
I watched as he got up and raced past me, and then I reached up to the fuse box and opened it, messing with the wiring so a short circuit would start.  
  
When the electrons were running good and hot I found a lit cigar and touched it to the box.  
  
WHAM!  
  
The pressure through me backwards as the fuse box exploded and the cigar went up in flames and as the flames licked up the wooden paneling, devouring the curtains...  
  
Just like it devoured my mother.  
  
I turned and fled, not caring where I was going, knowing that I was sick with the knowledge that I wasn't sick about murdering.  
  
I stumbled out into the street as a car rushed past me, horn blaring. I ignored it and stepped out further, arms open, inviting anyone to hit me. Several cars screeched to a stop right in front of me, but whoever controlled my life wasn't going to let me go.  
  
I lowered my hands and looked up into the night sky.  
  
"I will control my own life," I said to it.  
  
With my mind made up I ran, focused only on one thing. I would kill myself, I would allow myself to die, and I would control my own life. But I didn't want to bring more pain into Mommy's life, so I would jump off the Holliman Bridge into the water - it was cold enough, and I had enough Control to stay still and let it drown me. She wouldn't ever know what I did.  
  
I ran, ran away from everything, because I was too much of a coward to face the consequences of this earth.  
  
I didn't know what consequences I would face after my death, and if I had, maybe I wouldn't have wanted to die.  
  
But I didn't know, so in ignorance and in despair at what I could and did do I kneeled onto the bridge, looking at the water.  
  
The calm, Cool face of the river Asked me for a kiss.  
  
Who was I to not oblige, I who had never been kissed?  
  
I leaned forward to kiss the face of the river, when a car passed behind me, and then backed up, obviously curious about this object on a bridge.  
  
I heard the window roll down and then a boy's voice say, "C'mon, why are we stopping? We're late; I was supposed to be at the mall thirty minutes ago!"  
  
"Calm down," a deeper voice answered. "I just wanna see what's up."  
  
A silence and I knew what they were thinking. They could see the side of my face, my arms poised to dive, my eyes closed, ready to accept death.  
  
A car door slammed.  
  
"Hey, uh, you don't want to do that," the boy said, his voice coming closer.  
  
I turned and looked at him, my dead eyes staring at his living ones.  
  
"Who wouldn't want death?" I whispered. "Does this world really offer anything worth staying for?"  
  
He looked surprised, as if he hadn't expected me to answer. "Um, I don't know..."  
  
"Exactly," I said.  
  
I turned away, but he reached out a hand. "No, don't! I mean, isn't life enough?"  
  
A life that wasn't worth living? No, it wasn't.  
  
Another car door slammed. "Get in the car, Jake."  
  
The boy called Jake turned at his brother's call, and I leapt forward, to embrace my lover, and kissed him as I fell into his arms.  
  
I fell deeper and deeper into the water.  
  
I grimly smiled, satisfied, as I felt the chill of the water take over my body, cooling it to the point that no human could survive.  
  
I fell deeper.  
  
The water washed over me, and I felt my buoyancy pull me up to the surface so I moved my leaden arms to reach further down, down, down, when something touched my mind.  
  
A hand, guiding my brain, almost as if I were a Controller, but I could move my arms and legs of my own will, only they were so slow, so, slow...  
  
A hand turning my mind to a fish, a fish that I had acquired in the ocean, no!  
  
I watched, helpless, as my body turned into a fish, shedding my clothes into the freezing water as lethargy was banished from my mind and I became active, but not of my own doing.  
  
I could sense that whoever was doing this to me, this thing, had also acknowledged my curses, this thing had watched me even though I had fled from its heavy presence.  
  
I was alert now, my fish tail moving as I swam around the eddies and the currents, my lungs adapting to the freshwater, for after all, I was a silver salmon, wasn't I, except I had acquired myself in the ocean, hadn't I?  
  
I let my mind touch the fish's mind, and it had only one desire.  
  
Go upstream.  
  
I let it.  
  
We swam, the fish and I, the fish more than me, and we leapt into the air, shining silver against the moon, and we strode against the currents, and I forgot everything in this moment of joy, in the moment of laughter, even while grief abounded, even as death lurked around the corner.  
  
But it wasn't enough – when is anything ever enough? – and I gently took over, my mind full with a purpose.  
  
How easily a mind can change when all you do is change your body.  
  
I powered my salmon body and leapt into the shore, my lungs straining on the air that could not go through my gills.  
  
And I demorphed, shivering naked on the shore.  
  
I walked through the bushes to one of my contacts. She was gone, but it didn't matter. I picked the lock and then went through some of her clothes, picking out the smallest sizes. I didn't write a note, nothing the Yeerks could get, but walked home in jeans and a t-shirt that were still too big for me.  
  
I would explain to her later.  
  
Maybe.  
  
I strode through the outer districts of the town as Maya now, eyes alert, although my heart was still crying at the loss of my father.  
  
Daddy!  
  
And the people I killed...  
  
I looked at my right hand, the hand that I had forgotten while I was a fish without any hands, and saw that the red C had dulled down to a scab like scar, that still was imprinted under my wrist.  
  
IT WILL GO AWAY AFTER YOU PAY YOUR DEBT, NOT WHEN YOU MORPH.  
  
Why?! After all this, after all the deaths I had witnessed, after all the deaths I had dealt out, why, why was I in his debt, why, I would have preferred dying, going up in flames in the space pod -  
  
No, a voice inside me interrupted. Right now, you would have preferred it, right now, when there is nothing, but then you were quite eager to live.  
  
I was running faster, towards town, through an abandoned construction site that I often used as a short cut, running, running, running, running...  
  
I stopped, and for the second time looked up at the night sky.  
  
The stars dotted the area, and the moon was full and bright. I could see the galaxy that the Andalite Home World was in, and I could see the constellations that I had learned about from a book in the bookstore on the street.  
  
I could feel, I could taste, I knew, that everyone was watching me now, all the meddlers in my life, everyone, to see what I would do.  
  
I raised my right hand with the C on it, and shook in whoever's face it was.  
  
"I will never give up!" I shrieked, tears finally streaming down my face. "I will never give up! No more! Never! I will never die until I see you face to face, and demand to know why! I WILL NEVER GIVE UP!"  
  
I buried my face into my hands as I ran again, ran, but this time to home, to lights, to a mother, to a brother, to a family.  
  
Five minutes later an Andalite ship crash-landed in the very spot that I had shouted my defiance to the skies.

* * *

Review Responses

* * *

Oooooh! I tricked you! How many of you thought that Maya was going to be with the Animorphs when Elfangor came! Admit it. And now, a disclaimer, the poem isn't mine, it's by Langston Hughes, it was just perfect, though, so I used it. And, another announcement, but unfortunately I won't be able to update for three weeks. Yes, I realize that that is the longest time I've gone without an update, but I have finals coming up and my mother will draw and quarter me if she catches me on the computer. And I do really have to study anyway, since my grades need to be brought up. Anyway, I will see you in three weeks, and then I will be able to do almost daily updates, because there will be no school! Hurray! Hurray! See ya! And another thing. If there are random words describing actions, pretend that they are in asteriks. Fanfiction won't let me upload with them.  
  
DH L'Orange – Yes, very good. smiles This chapter wasn't as fast, and neither will the next, but they will pick up! Yeah, and I did use part of my experience to write Maya's day. Except our teachers will yell if we read, so I write in my palm pilot, pretending to take notes, which is why I keep babbling about how History class is so productive for my writing. And since boys generally are the idiots who get in trouble (sorry to the male race out there) I decided it would be good if Maya took advantage of that. And here is the "mall scene!" laughs evilly And oh yeah, I do have an IM but I'm never online. I have two actually. One is jessicajessejess, and the other is justjess347. If you happen to catch me, I'd love to talk to you, but I don't even have aol anymore. Sorry!  
  
Anonymous – cat – Thanks! And yes, I was showing the effects of torture through her not fighting, although we have yet to see if she will continue! And you're completely right. I can't understand Maya at all, because I don't feel good if I hurt someone, I feel bad and guilty. But I'm trying to almost explain her character, in a sense she is like the bullys, but we don't like them. So I give background about her, so that she will seem more real and won't be just a jerk. One reason everyone likes Tobias so much is because he stays good even though his life is horrible. And oops. That was my fault. I'm always thinking about marriage and my kids and so I passed that onto her inadvertently. Sorry! I'll work on not letting more of that slip. I kind had it just that she was observant about how many marriages never work out, and thinking that she would never be a good mother either. She is about three years older than the kids around her, so right now, she's about 16. Oh, that is my age. Never mind! And I'm sorry about not updating faster, and about the next chapter, but I will pick it up after that!  
  
Tabatha – Thanks! I like working the Animorphs into the story, too, and Jake was in this one. You're right Ax isn't on Earth yet. And I overrode the Elfangor scene! heh heh I'm so full of myself. I just don't want to do thing cliché like and since almost every single new Animorph went with them to see Elfangor... You get the picture.  
  
Hell-Flame-Narf – no, no, don't worry, Maya will still be in the story even if Nadar Chronicles 2 is over. It still is about her! And here is more Animorph stuff, although not the way most people expected!  
  
Custardpringle – yes, innuendos. Hmmph. Oh, ok! That'll be good (not god. j/k smiles) and bring it to school, and when I finally get around to that part sometimes in Junior year... Well, I'll talk to you about it in school. See ya!  
  
Birdie num num – Thanks! I'm really glad you like my story so much!  
  
Naric – yup, you got it right. They're in 8th grade, and Elfangor happened, but she missed it!  
  
Hey – yay!  
  
Goodbye for three weeks, but I will be back! Thank you to all my reviewers who are so nice to stay with me! See ya! 


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27:  
  
I sneaked through the door, aware that I had spent quite a few hours as a fish and that Mom might be back from the hospital yet.  
  
But she was gone, and so was the entire family.  
  
I started at the sound of a door opening and spun around to see Eamon rushing in, asking wildly, "Where's Dad?"  
  
Thirty seconds later we were speeding down to the highway as Eamon hurriedly explained how he had left Stanford as soon as he had heard the news.  
  
"I called one of the other foster kids and he promised to tell the others so I could come here."  
  
I nodded, sitting at the very tip of my seat, feet drumming out a rhythm, faster, faster, as Eamon overtook a Dodge Caravan and cut right in front of him, ignoring the screeching and honking and cursing that came from it.  
  
We pulled into the hospital parking lot and raced a car to the last spot available, and ran towards the doors, avoiding the pissed off guy trying to run us over. Eamon flipped him off and then we really had to run for it.  
  
We ran into the hospital breathless and red-faced, me scowling at Eamon for acting like a fool and him scowling at me for feeling the need to inform him of this.  
  
An orderly led us to the emergency room where Daddy was and we dropped our scowls instantly.  
  
He was hooked up to a million machines, with just as many tubes running in and out of his body, and he looked like...  
  
Like a beaten prisoner from North Korea.  
  
Eamon rushed forward, and knelt by the side of the bed, and I joined him a moment later, Cyndi crying on my one side while Mommy held tightly to Daddy's cold dead hand.  
  
I reached and touched his thin wispy hair, and acquired him.  
  
I think I did it so that later, in the future, if Mommy wanted to see her husband, she could.  
  
Only it wasn't him, it was just his genetic shell, a mockery of the true Daddy who had died to protect a woman he didn't even know.  
  
The rest of the evening passed in a daze for me. Someone told us he had passed away, we got home somehow, and somehow we ended up together in the living room, sharing our grief freely and without shame.  
  
One by one we dropped off in sleep, with tears still on our cheeks, and Mommy turned to me and mouthed, "Did you kill them?"  
  
I nodded, and she wept.  
  
The doorbell rang and Mom got up to answer it, after Eamon told her that it was probably a foster kid.  
  
It was, and more came that night, all nineteen of them came with food and tears and memories.  
  
Memories that I had no part of, and from which I withdrew, hiding, hiding.  
  
I found out no one could see my scar until I showed it to them, and so only Oscar knew, only Oscar I told. Mom did know what I had done, but she didn't know about Crayak.  
  
So I withdrew, and as I did, I wondered, who was I that so many giants of the sky wanted to meddle with me?  
  
And the answer always came back, sharply, shortly.  
  
You are nothing. You are nobody. Just a killing machine.  
  
But that is something, I would plead.  
  
Worth nothing, the answer came back ruthlessly. A murderer is worth nothing, so you are nothing.  
  
Nature abhors a vacuum, I thought faintly, quoting a Madeline L'Engel book. I am a vacuum, who will fill me?  
  
My mind slipped in and out, my body following the right movements, but I wasn't a part of it.  
  
One of the foster kids helping Mom out took Oscar, Cyndi and I to the San Diego Zoo, where I acquired various animals for whatever purpose, dreamily petting a komodo dragon, which was, the foster kid informed me nervously, a very dangerous animal. We went to a natural science museum next, and I stood and watched, hazing over as I slipped into a dreamy state, observing life faintly as I hid.  
  
Thin wisps of smoke puff up each time the children push down on the round metal plate surrounding the hole that the smoke escapes from. They almost seem like grayish clouds that you could scoop up with both hands, but at the last second, the slip away. From far away the puffs look like escaping clouds shaped like silent floating mushrooms. It could be anything, though, magic dust used to transport children to worlds away. A rising cloud ring from a volcano. Fog trapped in a vortex.  
  
"A vortex is a mass of liquid or gas with a whirling, circular motion." At least that's what the plaque says.  
  
My life is an inescapable vortex.  
  
"Maya?" Oscar called, jerking me out of my reverie.  
  
I turned, and he ran to me, and his look asked me, his eyes pleaded with me to stop drifting away.  
  
Why? My face asked. It's easier.  
  
But Oscar's eyes beseeched me and I began to feel a pull, a rope tied around my waist, pulling me forward, out of the water that I was drowning in, and I broke the surface, gasping, breathing the salt-filled air, as the rope pulled me to the shore and I lay panting, above the waves.  
  
Oscar jerked me back into life, and so I turned my face towards the rising sun, and followed it across the sky until it fell blood red into the sea.  
  
Red like the blood my father had. Red like the blood I spilled. Red like the blood that the Yeerks would pay with.  
  
"Except Yeerks don't have red blood." Oscar said when I told this to him.  
  
That's not important, I informed him. It's the principle that counts.  
  
Oscar just shrugged.  
  
I began building up a secret database in the basement, a super-computer that would hack into the Yeerk's computers so I could throw deliveries off schedule.  
  
That was how I found the Andalite Bandits.  
  
The first attack was recorded the day after Daddy had died, and the summary gave me valuable information.  
  
Earth Report 23654787: Andalite bandits attacked the Yeerk Pool today, using various morphs acquired from fierce Earth animals. These included a tiger, an elephant, a gorilla, and a bird of prey which was unable to be specifically identified. Some reported a horse, and in the confusion there may have been more. Considerable damage was done to the Yeerk Pool and so far the missing count is up to 13. However, many of the missing may be dead due to the Visser's incarceration of them.  
  
The report continued with the damage report, listing the dead and wounded, but my eyes were drawn to the very first words.  
  
Andalite bandits...  
  
It had been so long since I had been near a real Andalite. I could imagine their haughty glares and proud looks, and I longed to destroy them. But we were ostensibly fighting the same enemy, so I helped them, in little ways, without ever revealing that I existed.  
  
I read the report where another young Andalite had been rescued by the bandits, and I remembered Xelaman and his cruelty. I had changed the orders so less Taxons would go with the Yeerks, and I longed to tell the Andalites that I, a lowly Elemaki, had helped them.  
  
I read how they had tried to steal a bug fighter, and arranged it so that Visser One's guards would be in place to let them go free.  
  
I was in the database when the report came that the Kadrona was destroyed, and I watched in interest as a fellow Yeerk sabotaged his own people's invasion - leaving me without a thing to do.  
  
The day after the report came about the attempt on Visser Three's life, I knew the uneasy feeling that had been bothering me had finally come to a culmination.  
  
I listed mentally everything that felt wrong, starting with the first attack against the Yeerk Pool.  
  
One: They always attacked in morph, which was something a proud Andalite would not do unless the mission was of espionage.  
  
Two: I had heard reports that only the aritsh ever spoke directly to the Yeerks, which was unheard of.  
  
Three: The damage among humans was considerably less then among the other Controllers.  
  
My only conclusion was that the Andalite bandits were human, but it was impossible to conceive how they had gotten the morphing power. No Andalite would have given it to them - that was deliberately breaking Seerow's Kindness! No Andalite would care enough about Earth to give Earth any hope.  
  
And yet...  
  
Based on what I knew, I decided that these Andalite bandits were humans, probably former Controllers who found a morphing cube and knew what it was.  
  
And so one day, after whoever these fighters were finished attacking a "logging company" the Yeerks had created, I followed them.  
  
It was simple, really. I was a bird high in the sky, a merlin I believe it was called, and I tracked them as they ran. I had witnessed them telling the Visser that grape juice was the way to get skunk smell off, and then, I knew that they were humans playing a trick on the Visser.  
  
What did Andalites know about the properties of grape and tomato juice?  
  
I saw where they ran off to, and the next day I paid a visit.  
  
Earlier that day Jenny had invited me to the mall, and being restless before my trip, I agreed.  
  
"C'mon Jenny," I called loudly over the throngs of people there. Why did I agree to come, again? Normally I loved going to the mall but today all my nerves were stretched out and the slightest provocation was like someone taking a hammer and pounding against them.  
  
She pushed through, and said, "Here, I have something to show you."  
  
Jenny sped forward and I followed in her wake as we milled around hundreds of other people who seemed to lead pointless lives here in the mall.  
  
Jenny led me up some steps and stopped at a locked door.  
  
"Do your magic," she said with a smile and a bow.  
  
I pulled out a paper clip and worked it into the lock until the door popped open. We forged ahead, up more flights, past another locked door and then stepped onto the top of the roof of the mall, blinking away the sunlight.  
  
It was beautiful, just like almost everything in Earth. The city from my vantage point was mine, everything the light touched I could touch. I stood, letting the soft breeze play with my wisps, and letting the sun warm my dark brown hair.  
  
I turned to thank Jenny for bringing me, and she smiled shyly. "I know how much you like being on top of high places, so I thought you would like it here."  
  
I nodded, and sensing that I would rather be left alone, Jenny climbed back down.  
  
I slowly stripped off my clothes and folded them neatly and left them in a pile on the roof, and morphed to a merlin with only a swimsuit on.  
  
I circled over the city in the golden afternoon, rising with the thermals, making my way slowly to the barn where I had seen the supposed Andalite bandits disappear to.  
  
I glided over the woods and passed over the barn, landing softly in a tree a few feet from it. I morphed as quietly as I could, and approached the barn on my stomach so that no one would see.  
  
"Do you think we should have told the Visser that it was tomato juice ..." was the first thing I heard before the voice faded away.  
  
That voice was so similar... where had I heard it before?  
  
A chorus of "nah" startled me, and I crept closer, creeping like a snake to the barn where human voices were.  
  
I paused at the corner of the barn and then drew myself up, pressing flat against the wall so that I could sneak around to the barn doors and introduce myself.  
  
I stepped through the doors, and started to smile, but almost died of shock.  
  
Rachel. Cassie. Marco. Another boy I didn't recognize.  
  
THEY were the Andalite bandits?  
  
Fwap.  
  
An Andalite tail blade at my throat.  
  
"Don't kill her, Ax," the boy I didn't know ordered.  
  
"Maya?" Rachel asked in a disbelieving tone. "What are you doing here?"  
  
I found my voice. "You guys are the Andalite bandits? I mean, I knew they were humans, but I didn't think they were kids..."  
  
{Yeerk filth!} The Andalite shot at me.  
  
I turned my coldest glare to him. "Andalite filth," I spat back.  
  
The Andalite turned livid, and pressed his tail blade more firmly against my neck.  
  
"What?" I taunted. "Is it too dishonorable to kill an unarmed human female? How about an Elemaki?"  
  
"What's going on?" Marco asked suddenly. "Do you guys know each other or something?"  
  
Teeth gritted I said, "Andalite, I am an Elemaki who came to Earth. I have sworn to destroy your kind."  
  
"What are you guys talking about?" Cassie asked.  
  
The Andalite explained, in his own arrogant way. {The Elemaki are a despicable lower race that inhabited much of my Home World's land a little over twenty five of your years ago.}  
  
"They're not our years," Marco started, but Rachel smacked him over his head, saying "Shut up."  
  
The Andalite continued. {We eliminated most of them, but some survived, such as this one, although how she got to Earth I cannot guess.} He paused, then asked, {May I kill her, Prince Jake?}  
  
The name clicked, and I looked at the boy who had tried to stop me from killing myself that one night in a different light.  
  
"Don't call me prince," he answered the Andalite wearily.  
  
{It's ok, I know her, she won't rat on us,} another thought-speech voice came suddenly from the rafters.  
  
I looked up to see a large red-tailed hawk sitting on the rafters.  
  
{Hi, Maya,} he said to me.  
  
I recognized the sweet, soft-spoken boy even without his spoken voice.  
  
Tobias, the boy who had been with me the night Daddy died.  
  
I remembered thinking that if only I hadn't gone with Tobias to the mall that night; I would have been there in time to save Daddy...  
  
"So you're a nothlit?" I asked, banishing any thoughts of blame.  
  
{Yeah.}  
  
"Who are you?" the one called Jake asked, brow puzzling as he tried to figure out what to do with this new problem.  
  
I looked at him, at all of them, at this Andalite who the others called Ax, and decided to leave. No way could these people defeat the Yeerks. If they ever got caught like me, they would break, completely.  
  
"I'm nobody," I told them. "And I'm also leaving. No way will you guys defeat the Yeerks, and I'm not going to be there to die beside you."  
  
I saw Rachel's eyes flare as she snapped, "And who said we wanted you?"  
  
"Rachel," Jake said disapprovingly as he turned to me. "We can't let you go. You might be a Controller, and even if you don't want to join us, we can't trust you enough to be free."  
  
"Fine," I snapped. "Hold me for three days. Someone has to call my mom and tell her that I'll be gone for three days and I'll be back later."  
  
All of them blinked.  
  
"You mean you can just tell your mom that you'll show up three days later and she will let you without asking any questions?" Marco asked.  
  
I glared at all of them, at these fighters who I knew would convince me to join, if only by the fact that they were fighting such a desperate war against immeasurable odds.  
  
They were humans, and they loved their planet, just like Eun-hee and Anna had.  
  
I spent the next three days in a shack, bound, talking to the various "Animorphs" as Marco explained they were called, telling them about my life – not the details, they weren't ready for that, just like Mom wasn't read to tell me about her life, but the outline.  
  
And the more I observed them, saw their dedication – although that despised Andalite didn't have any dedication as far as I saw it – I knew that I would fight beside them.  
  
Three days later, I became an Animorph.  
  
--------------------------------------------------  
  
Review Responses  
  
Ok, I couldn't help it. I broke down. I am going to pay for it on my finals, but I finished all my hwork in school, and so I just couldn't study for finals when I could write. And this is the end of Nadar Chronicles II! I will move onto Animorph style books, although they will be a little shorter. Those I won't start until two weeks, and I'm serious this time. I hope, because my grades depend on it!  
  
DH L'Orange – Yeah, I read that poem in English class last year and I knew I was going to use it somehow in this fic. And I'm sorry that you didn't get to see Maya in the construction site – I just hate doing this cliché, like the way everybody else in fanfic world does it, and so I changed it. Like for this fic, I had her find the Animorphs in the most in character why, not through Tobias. And she does feel guilty about not feeling guilty, but that won't make her stop. And about Crayak... well, you know how I have this entire thing planned out in advance? After the Animorph style books, there is Nadar Chronicles III, then another book where this part of Crayak will play into it more heavily. I always put stuff way in advance tho. And about her being motivated to give up, she realized that she wasn't going to die, because "meddlers" didn't want her to, so she decided instead of defying them that way, she was going to live, but live the way she wanted to. We'll see how successful she is... Anyway, sorry that was confusing. And here is an update, although next next Wednesday will be when the next one comes up – it is called The Aging, if you want to know.  
  
Hell-Flame-Narf – read the second part of the review to DH and it'll explain about Crayak... I'm getting the feeling that a lot of people were confused about that, sorry!  
  
Birdie num num – I'm glad you liked that part! I didn't want Maya to be cliché and go with the Animorphs, or find Tobias later, so I did it this way. Thanks!  
  
Hey – sorry you didn't beta this one but I can't find you and this is sixth period lab.  
  
Anonymous-cat – in a way, I guess it's hard. Mostly because I wouldn't react to things the way Maya does because of my faith, but I often imagine what I would do. Maya has been a part of my imaginations and my life ever since I started reading the Animorph books so even if I can't relate to her, I know her well enough to write her. And yes, I was thinking that Maya would kill Elfangor if she ran into him then, as you can see with her reaction to Ax. And about the dying streak... sorry, like I said I have it all planned out so they are kinda dead in my mind already... And read the second half of DH's review response and it explains the Crayak part. He wanted to ensure that Maya would stay a Nadar – you'll see why later! I really do have this all planned out. And also, the C does stay on her arm because she didn't kill the dude. And this one is a little early, but like I said, I couldn't wait. Onto the next book!  
  
Custardpringle – LOL! Well, you are sitting next to me and I did answer you verbally before, so...  
  
Please review! I'm trying to hit 200 for this fic, so please, even if you haven't reviewed the entire story, just one review! And then you get another chance in the next book! Please!  
  
See you in one and a half weeks! 


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